In this January 16, 2014 filephoto, a child tries to help his father arrange weapons at a checkpoint set up by the Self-Defense Council of Michoacan (CAM) in Tancitaro, Mexico. Authorities fear self-defense groups could turn into the very sort of organized crime forces they're fighting, while citizens who had been kidnapped, beaten and had land confiscated by the Knight Templar drug cartel praise the vigilantes for providing security. (Photo by Felix Marquez/AP Photo)

In this January 31, 2014 file photo, the body of boxer Christopher Rivera, who was shot to death, is propped up in a fake boxing ring during his wake held in the public housing project where he lived in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Elsie Rodriguez, vice president of the Marin funeral home, explained that Rivera had asked his family that if he died, he wanted his funeral to make reference to his boxing career. (Photo by Ricardo Arduengo/AP Photo)

In this January 12, 2014 file photo, the Self-Defense Council of Michoacan (CAM) engage in a firefight as they try to flush out alleged members of the Knights Templar drug cartel from Nueva Italia, Mexico. The vigilantes say they are liberating territory in the “Tierra Caliente” and are aiming for the farming hub of Apatzingan, said to be the cartel's central command. Mexican military troops stayed outside the town and there were no federal police in sight. (Photo by Eduardo Verdugo/AP Photo)

In this February 22, 2014 file photo, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman is escorted to a helicopter in handcuffs by Mexican navy marines at a navy hanger in MexicoCity, Mexico. Guzman, the head of Mexico's Sinaloa Cartel, was captured alive overnight in the beach resort town of Mazatlan. (Photo by Eduardo Verdugo/AP Photo)

In this February 5, 2014 file photo, Divaldo Aguiar, who plays the part of Pachencho, lies inside a mock coffin as villagers splash rum into Aguiar's mouth during the Burial of Pachencho celebration at a cemetery in Santiago de Las Vegas, Cuba. The bash kicked off with the slow procession to the local cemetery as pallbearers carried the coffin of “Pachencho”, known the other 364 days of the year as Divaldo Aguiar, to an open grave and used ropes to lower it six feet under. (Photo by Franklin Reyes/AP Photo)

In this March 3, 2014 file photo, blood and shattered glass cover the pavement after gunmen opened fire on the driver of a passenger bus, Roger Enrique Hernandez Gutierrez, and his assistant, killing them both in Tegucigalpa, Honduras. Taxi and passenger bus drivers are targets of gangs seeking extortion money in this country with one of the highest murder rates in the world. (Photo by Dario Lopez-Mills/AP Photo)

In this April 24, 2014 file photo, the relatives and friends of Douglas Rafael da Silva Pereira grieve around his coffin as they bury him in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. A protest followed the burial of Silva Pereira, whose shooting death sparked clashes between police and residents. (Photo by Felipe Dana/AP Photo)

In this April 4, 2014 file photo, a community policeman kicks a man who they alledge participated in an ambush against them near the town of La Concepcion, Mexico. The vigilante force was set-up by affected communities opposed to the construction of the La Parota hydroelectric dam. Two vigilantes were injured and one died. (Photo by Bernandino Hernandez/AP Photo)

In this March 20, 2014 file photo, resident cat, “El dueño de casa”, tears through a government palace corridor as officials await the arrival of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State of the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta S. Jacobson, for her official meeting with Paraguay's President Horacio Cartes in Asuncion, Paraguay. (Photo by Jorge Saenz/AP Photo)

In this March 3, 2014 file photo, Djalma Antonio Jardim, who has a rare inherited skin disease known as xeroderma pigmentosum, or “XP”, looks in a a mirror at his home in the Araras community of Brazil's Goias state. In an effort to camouflage how the disease has eaten away the skin on his lips, nose, cheeks and eyes, Jardim wears a rudimentary orange-tinted mask, its stenciled-in right eyebrow not matching his bushy real one that remains. (Photo by Eraldo Peres/AP Photo)

In this March 25, 2014 file photo, people reach out to receive a bucketful of water as vendors, police and firemen work together to put out a fire at La Terminal, the largest and most important market in Guatemala City. Firefighters struggled to manage the fire that destroyed hundreds of shops due to the lack of water hydrants in the area, located south of the historic city center. (Photo by Moises Castillo/AP Photo)

In this April 13, 2014 file photo, people watch as a forest fire rages towards urban areas in the city of Valparaiso, Chile. Authorities say the first fire has destroyed at least 150 homes and is forcing evacuations. (Photo by Luis Hidalgo/AP Photo)

In this April 3, 2014 file photo, government supporters beat a naked opposition student as he's forced to sit on the ground inside of the Central University of Venezuela, UCV, during an anti-government protest in Caracas, Venezuela. Students attempted to march from the university to protest the country's deteriorating economy, but hundreds of riot police prevented them from leaving campus, deploying tear gas and flash-bang grenades. The hours-long street battle ended with pro-government groups in bandanas storming the campus. (Photo by Fernando Llano/AP Photo)

In this March 6, 2014 file photo, Gabriel Garcia Marquez greets fans and reporters outside his home on his birthday in Mexico City. The Colombian Nobel Literature laureate died this year on April 17. His flamboyant and melancholy works outsold everything published in Spanish except the Bible, and he is considered the most popular Spanish-language writer since Miguel de Cervantes in the 17th century. The epic 1967 novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude” sold more than 50 million copies in more than 25 languages. (Photo by Eduardo Verdugo/AP Photo)

In this April 21, 2014 file photo, rain falls on pavement painted with a yellow butterfly in a street where the late Nobel laureate Gabriel Garcia Marquez was born prior to a symbolic funeral ceremony in Aracataca, in Colombia's Caribbean coast. Garcia Marquez died at the age of 87 in Mexico City on April 17. In One Hundred Years of Solitude, the author's masterpiece, clouds of yellow butterflies precede a forbidden lover's arrival. (Photo by Ricardo Mazalan/AP Photo)

In this April 28, 2014 file photo, a woman throws a rock and a bag at police blocking her from getting home in the Huepetuhe district of the Madre de Dios region of Peru. Security forces began destroying illegal gold mining machinery in Peru's southeastern jungle region of Madre de Dios, as authorities began enforcing a ban on illegal mining. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

In this June 6, 2014 file photo, people play soccer in the Dona Marta slum, backdropped by the Christ the Redeemer statue and Corcovado Mountain in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Soccer schools operate in nearly all of the slums, from the Dona Marta shantytown, which is ensconced in the middle-class Botafogoneighborhood, to Mangueira, a historic slum overlooking the mythical Maracana Stadium. (Photo by Felipe Dana/AP Photo)

In this May 26, 2014 file photo, a mural of Brazilian soccer player Neymar, right, and others cover a wall by a bus stop in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The mural was painted by Brazilian street artist Rodolfo Turini ahead of the World Cup soccer tournament. (Photo by Andre Penner/AP Photo)

In this May 20, 2014 file photo, a female baby sloth peeks out from behind a door on a floating house in the “Lago do Janauari” near Manaus, Brazil. The sloth was captured by the owner of the floating house, who makes a living showing local fauna to visitors. In an an attempt to prevent any harm to the animals he

says he only keeps each animal for a few weeks before returning it to it's natural habitat. (Photo by Felipe Dana/AP Photo)

In this May 2, 2014 file photo, Uruguay's President Jose Mujica flashes a thumbs up as he and and his wife, Sen. Lucia Topolansky, ride away from their home after giving an interview, on the outskirts of Montevideo, Uruguay. (Photo by Matilde Campodonico/AP Photo)

In this June 7, 2014 file photo, 17-year-old Miguel Chusqui grimaces in pain as he is lashed by a “rondero”, a member of a citizen vigilante group known as a “ronda urbana”, or urban patrol, in Cajamarca, Peru. Chusqui was sentenced to five lashes for stealing a laptop. Rondas only handle cases that authorities consider minor, settling property and debt disputes, family quarrels and marital infidelities. If a felony is committed, the rondas turn the transgressor over to police. The harshest sentence they administer, they say, is banishment. (Photo by Martin Mejia/AP Photo)

In this July 8, 2014 file photo, a Brazilsoccer fan weeps as she watchesGermany score repeatedly againstBrazil at a World Cup semifinal match on a live telecast inside the FIFA Fan Fest area in Sao Paulo, Brazil. (Photoby Dario Lopez-Mills/AP Photo)

In this July 8, 2014 file photo, Brazil's Fernandinho reacts after Germany's Toni Kroosduring scored a third goal during their World Cup semifinal soccer match in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. (Photo by Natacha Pisarenko/AP Photo)

In this June 26, 2014 file photo, a U.S. soccer fan pretends that Uruguay's soccer striker Luis Suarez is biting him as he takes a selfie next to an Adidas advertisement featuring Suarez near Copacabana beach in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. FIFA banned Suarez from all football activities for four months on Thursday for biting an opponent at the World Cup, a punishment that rules him out of the rest of the tournament. (Photo by Matt Dunham/AP Photo)

In this June 23, 2014 file photo, Mexico's Andres Guardado celebrates with teammatesafter Rafael Marquez scoredthe team's first goal duringtheir World Cup soccer match with Croatia in Recife, Brazil. (Photo by Ricardo Mazalan/AP Photo)

In this July 16, 2014 file photo, voodoo pilgrims bathe in a waterfall believed to have purifying powers during the annual celebration in Saut d' Eau, Haiti. The annual pilgrimage is made in honor of Haiti's most celebrated patron saint, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, who is supposed to have appeared on a palm tree in 1847 in the Palm Grove in Saut d'Eau and was integrated into Haiti's voodoo culture as the goddess of love. (Photo by Dieu Nalio Chery/AP Photo)

In this August 27, 2014 file photo, a woman speaks strongly to Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, who's running for reelection for the Workers Party (PT), as Rousseff makes a campaign stop at a popular restaurant in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Brazil saw hundreds of demonstrations in the past year by people expressing anger about poor public services, corruption in government, the billions spent to host the World Cup and a litany of other complaints. (Photo by Silvia Izquierdo/AP Photo)

In this July 12, 2014 file photo, Brazil soccer fans react in disbelief as their team trails the Netherlands during a live broadcast of the World Cup soccer match, inside the FIFA Fan Fest area on Copacabana beach, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The Dutch beat host Brazil 3-0. (Photo by Silvia Izquierdo/AP Photo)

In this July 17, 2014 file photo, boys watch television in their room at The Great Family group home in Zamora, Mexico. After a police raid on the refuse-strewn group home, residents of the shelter told authorities that some employees beat residents, fed them rotting food or locked them in a tiny “punishment” room. Shelter residents were still being kept at the home while officials look for places to transfer them. (Photo by Rebecca Blackwell/AP Photo)

In this July 12, 2014 file photo, relatives carry the coffin of Gilberto Francisco Ramos Juarez, a Guatemalan boy whose decomposed body was found in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, to a local cemeteryin San Jose Las Flores, Guatemala. The 15-year-old Guatemalan migrant was buried in his hometown nearly a month after he became a symbol of the perils facing unaccompanied children who have been flooding illegally into the U.S. (Photo by MoisesCastillo/AP Photo)

In this August 26, 2014 file photo, 4-year-old patient Saul Valverde kisses Andariego, a 19-year-old veteran horse that retired from “charreria”, the Mexican version of a rodeo, at a corral in southern Mexico City. Andariego now works as a therapy horse, helping children with special needs. In Mexico, the career of the charro horse usually runs about 10 to 12 years. (Photo by Marco Ugarte/AP Photo)

In this August 29, 2014 file photo, young miner Leber Vivas Gonzales, 16, center right, walks with his his arm over the shoulders of a rescue worker after he was saved from the El Comal gold and silver mine in Bonanza, Nicaragua. Rescuers saved 22 of at least 26 workers trapped after a mine collapse. (Photo by Esteban Felix/AP Photo)

In this September 15, 2014 file photo, people salvage useful remains from homes destroyed by Hurricane Odile in Los Cabos, Mexico. Hundreds of impoverished houses were destroyed in the Unidad Real squatter's settlement and other equally poor neighborhoods. (Photo by Victor R. Caivano/AP Photo)

In this September 25, 2014 file photo, containers hold genetically modified aedes aegypti mosquitoes before being released in Panama City. They are bingreleased to combat and control populations of mosquitoes that transmit dengue. The aedes aegypti mosquito is the main vector for another viral disease called chikungunya that appeared less than a year ago in the Americas and is raging across the region, leaping from the Caribbean to the Central and South American mainland, bringing the total number infected in the epidemic to more than 1 million. (Photo by Arnulfo Franco/AP Photo)

In this September 11, 2014 file photo, a detainee rests, handcuffed to a slide, at a children's playground in a public park in Bogota, Colombia. Authorities have been holding some crime suspects in a public park in western Bogota's La Granja neighborhood because they say there is no more room at a local detention center. Prisoners suspected of crimes ranging from robbery to drug trafficking are kept at a makeshift encampment day and night, guarded by groups of six police officers who switch after eight-hour shifts. (Photo by Fernando Vergara/AP Photo)

In this September 19, 2014 file photo, U.S. singer Miley Cyrus performs in concert during her Bangerz Tour in Mexico City. (Photo by Eduardo Verdugo/AP Photo)

In this October 10, 2014 file photo, a woman carries a bag on her back as she walks past slogans in support of President Evo Morales painted on a wall in La Paz, Bolivia. Morales went on to win re-election under the Movement Toward Socialism Party (MAS). (Photo by Juan Karita/AP Photo)

In his October 15, 2014 file photo, 8-year-old Yodimiler Arias, along with fellow wrestlers, listen to instruction from their teacher, in a park in Old Havana, Cuba. Yodimiler's mother said the U.S. flag motif wrestling suit was sent by her cousin in the United States. (Photo by Ramon Espinosa/AP Photo)

In this October 22, 2014 file photo, demonstrators protest the disappearance of 43 students from the Isidro Burgos rural teachers college, in Mexico City. Tens of thousands marched in Mexico City's main avenue demanding the return of the missing students who were rounded up by local police in Iguala, a town in southern Mexico, and handed over to gunmen from a drug cartel September 26. (Photo by Marco Ugarte/AP Photo)

In this October 31, 2014 file photo, a man dressed as DC Comics super villain The Joker points a toy gun as he strikes a pose in a subway car in Santiago, Chile. (Photo by Luis Hidalgo/AP Photo)

In this November 12, 2014 file photo, a column of policemen move into a gold mining camp as part of an operation to eradicate illegal mining in the area known as La Pampa, in Peru's Madre de Dios region. Less than a month before Peru played host to global climate talks, the government sent police into southeastern jungles to dismantle illegal gold-mining mining camps. Fifty-thousand hectares of rainforest have been obliterated in the past six years in the wasteland known as La Pampa. (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/AP Photo)

In this November 15, 2014 file photo, a boy jumps over a whale carcass as workers prepare a grave for the animal's burial on Popoyo Beach in Tola, Nicaragua. The stranded whale was discovered on Nicaragua's southern Pacific coast where a group of people tried in vain to push it back into the sea. (Photo by Esteban Felix/AP Photo)

In this November 24, 2014 file photo, macaws eat perched on a circular platform with 58 feeder bowls on the roof of an apartment building in Caracas, Venezuela. City resident and bird lover, Ivo Contreras built the circular platform to attract the macaws. “For me, it's a pleasure to see them come every day ... to share a space with them where you can recharge and find harmony”, said Contreras, 44, who is a stylist for the Miss Venezuela beauty contest. (Photo by Ariana Cubillos/AP Photo)

In this November 30, 2014 file photo, children dressed as “El Chapulin Colorado” and “El Chavo del Ocho” characters, release white doves during the memorial service of Mexican comedian Roberto Gomez Bolanos at the Azteca stadium the in Mexico City. The iconic Mexican comedian who also wrote and played the boy television character “El Chavo del Ocho” and “El Chapulin Colorado”, defined a generation for millions of Latin American children, died Friday at age 85. (Photo by Marco Ugarte/AP Photo)

In this December 5, 2014 file photo, a youth performs at theinauguration of the new UNASUR headquarters building as Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez, center, UNASUR General secretary Ernesto Samper, second from right, and Suriname's President Desi Bouterse, right, watch in Quito, Ecuador. At left are Paraguay's President Horacio Cartes and Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff. (Photo by Dolores Ochoa/AP Photo)

In this November 20, 2014 file photo, protestors face off against federal police over barriers surrounding the National Palace in Mexico City. Protesters marched in the capital city to demand authorities find 43 missing college students, seeking to pressure the government. Mexico officially lists more than 20,000 people as having gone missing since the start of the country's drug war in 2006, and the search for the missing students has turned up other, unrelated mass graves. (Photo by Rebecca Blackwell/AP Photo)

The Associated Press

Best of 2014 from Latin America