Guatemala has rescued at least 160 children and 40 women following a raid on an extremist ultra-Orthodox Jewish sect's compound over reports of abuse.

Interior Minister Francisco Jimenez said the National Civil Police and members of the military participated in the raid on the Lev Tahor group’s community about 55 miles (90 kilometers) southeast of the capital.

"The protection of boys and girls is an absolute priority," Jimenez said.

Guatemala’s Attorney General’s Office said in a statement on the social platform X that suspected bones of one child were found.

The office said a complaint was made in November of possible crimes including forced pregnancies, mistreatment of minors and rape.

Later Sunday, about 100 of the children's relatives who belong to the sect gathered outside a care center in Guatemala City, where the children were being held, to demand their return.

Sect members then "broke into" the center around 4:30 p.m. local time (10.30 p.m. GMT Sunday), "forcing open the gate and abducting the children and adolescents sheltered there," a statement from the Attorney General's Office said.

Those outside the shelter tried to prevent the authorities from bringing back the minors, leading to some scuffles with police, according to an AFP photographer at the scene.

History of legal problems

With police help, the center "managed to locate and protect everyone again," the Attorney General's Office said, although the Secretariat of Social Welfare of the Presidency later clarified some "evaded" authorities and a search alert has been activated.

"We want them to let the children out of here," Uriel Goldman, a representative of the families, told AFP outside the center before the attempted recapture of the minors.

The sect has run into legal problems in various countries.

In 2022, Mexican authorities arrested a leader of the sect near the Guatemalan border and removed several women and children from their compound.

In 2021, two leaders of the group were convicted of kidnapping and child sexual exploitation crimes in New York.

They allegedly kidnapped two children from their mother to return a 14-year-old girl to an illegal sexual relationship with an adult male.

The sect is known to have members in Canada, the United States, Mexico, Guatemala and Israel.