11 Nicaraguans beheaded

Police in Nicaragua say an armed gang has beheaded eleven members of a single family and impaled their heads on a fence outside their home.

Five children are reported to have survived the attack, which took place in a remote jungle region of Nicaragua's Caribbean coast, a notoriously violent area where the authorities rarely venture.

The victims all belonged to a family of Guadelupe Montenegro, the former leader of a now-disbanded rebel group the Andres Castro United Front, or FUAC.

A BBC correspondent in Central America says the killings could be linked to disputes between drug-traffickers or the settling of old scores from Nicaragua's civil war, which ended ten years ago. Our correspondent says the brutal nature of the killings has shocked many in a country already inured to violence.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service