It is barely lunchtime on a Tuesday but the bodies are already starting to pile up at the Guatemala City morgue. Three of them, men aged between 21 and 32, are the victims of gunshot wounds. Two more probably are, too, though the doctors have yet to confirm it – the corpses have arrived in a state of severe decomposition.

Mario Guerra, the morgue’s director, says the murder rate has risen so quickly over the last few years that he and his staff are overwhelmed. “I have 10 doctors to deal with all of this,” he says, in front of a shrine with a statue of the Virgin Mary clasping her hands together. “But if we are to cope we need between five and 10 more.”