A volunteer police force in rural Mexico has recruited schoolchildren as young as 12 to join its ranks after saying it has been overwhelmed by a wave of kidnappings.

Armed with rifles and sticks, and with their faces covered, boys and girls paraded around the local sports field this week before joining a patrol in Ayahualtempa, a mountain village in the southwestern state of Guerrero.

The measure is the latest sign of how some parts of the country are struggling to cope with organised crime.

Violence has recently escalated in Guerrero, one of the poorest states in Mexico. 

In early January, a drone attack allegedly carried out by drug cartel La Familia Michoacana killed around 30 people, human rights groups say.

In Ayahualtempa, four members of a local family have been missing since they were kidnapped on Friday, the Guerrero state prosecutor’s office said.

The minors are reinforcing the volunteer police force, said Luis Morales, a community police member.

This is not the first time minors have been armed in Guerrero, where authorities have struggled to counter powerful drug trafficking gangs.