society

Youth fall victim to violence

Arms smuggling and gang violence are blamed for an increased number of gun injuries to children.

LA PRENSA/Gabriel Rodríguez

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A child lifts the right sleeve of her blouse to reveal a scar that could be confused with one left behind by a vaccine.

“The bullet entered through here,” she said, smiling slightly.

Then, unbuttoning the top of her school uniform, she pointed to two more marks, covered over by thicker and darker scar tissue, known as keloid.

“It was going for the heart,” she said, repeating what the surgeon who removed it had told her.

Nearly two years have passed since stray bullets hit the now 12-year-old girl, whose name is being withheld by La Prensa because of her age. She was shot as she walked down a street in a notorious “red zone” neighborhood.

With more illicit firearms finding their way into the city each year, often to wage urban gang wars, a growing number of children are falling victim to cross fire that is becoming increasingly common.

Guzmán Aranda, a neurologist from Hospital del Niño, reported that he’s treated 37 children for bullet wounds over the last eight months, a marked jump from last year’s total of 30 such cases.

Children between 10 and 14 make up the majority of the victims, who often end up in the crossfire while they are walking on streets or alleyways in their own neighborhoods.

The neurologist explained that each case is very different, and many of the children deal with the trauma of their injuries in a very personal way. The 12-year-old girl, for instance, didn’t appear to suffer anxiety at first, but one of her teachers told her parents that she had become very restless and unruly during class.

According to Aranda, she was one of his luckier patients. Though most of the injuries he treats occur on the children’s lower limbs and torso, occasionally he has seen three cases this year where bullets caused grave head trauma.