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Naranjo, PetŽn, Guatemala. Migrants sit on the edge of boats that will ferry them across the river to waiting trucks. The trucks then carry the migrants through the remote parts of the PetŽn jungle where they will then walk overnight into Mexico to catch a freight train north. This is the last area where the migrants will be legal residents for a long time. ..There are several routes for migrants to enter Mexico from Naranjo, which was for many years a sleepy border town until Hurricane Mitch struck in 1998. The hurricane washed out the train tracks near Tecun Uman, Chiapas and the migrant traffic increased almost immediately through the PetŽn and into Tabasco, Mexico...The safest, but most remote route is the jungle journey, which entails a 6- to 8-hour one-way drive in the back of a cattle truck and the overnight walk. Instead, many migrants choose to take a shorter, more dangerous path on the ÒlanchasÓ, or riverboats. On this route migrants risk robbery, kidnappings, rapes and even murder at the hands of armed gangs like the Zetas....6292 people were murdered in Guatemala in 2008. Most of them were killed in the capital of Guatemala City. The violence in this small Central American country knows no limits and currently it is one of the most violent and insecure places in the world that is not in a declared state war. People are consistently murdered for their cell phones on the streets, bus drivers are shot in the head in broad daylight in front of crowds of onlookers and people are openly extorted and killed if they do not pay. ..Violence is on the rise and many here feel that the current government has little or no control over the various forces undermining basic civilian normalcy...As part of a project examining the collective experience of Latin American migrants to the United States I have traveled to Guatemala at least 4 times over the past several years to show the devastating effect that violence has on everyday people in the nation's capital and dem (KEYSTONE/NOOR/jon lowenstein / NOOR)