From Billy Briggs in Guatemala City

OUTSIDE the morgue in zone three of Guatemala City, Fablo Fajardo waited to identify the body of his brother Jose, shot dead in the street the day before.

"He was a security guard and was coming out of a bank when robbers attacked," said 40-year-old Fajardo, dressed all in black. He showed us Jose's ID card, then spoke about Melanie, his two-year-old niece, now fatherless.

"No-one can go out. We cannot live in Guatemala any more," he added, wearily. Ten years on from the end of a 36-year civil war that resulted in the deaths of at least 200,000 people, Guatemala is a nation still riven with extreme violence.

A land of stunning beauty, it seems an almost lawless society where murder is endemic and public lynchings are common, with around 400 cases between 1996 and 2002, according to the UN.

Guatemala City is one of the most brutal capitals in the world, and in July Philip Alston, the United Nations' special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, said levels of violence were worse than during the civil war that ended in 1996.

At the morgue we were told that around 15 to 20 bodies arrive each day, mostly people gunned down in the street. Many of the victims are women, and Amnesty International issued a report recently that highlighted a staggering increase in the numbers of women murdered in the country.

Since 2002, when 163 women were killed, the figure has increased by more than 300%. In 2005, 665 killings of women were registered, and between January and May this year, another 299. According to Guatemala's human rights ombudsman, as many as 70% of murders of women have not been investigated by the police, and in 93% of cases no arrests have been made.

In an interview with the Sunday Herald, Myrna Ponce, president of the national human rights commission, accused the police of dereliction of duty.

"They do not care about female victims. They are the worst institution in the country because of the corruption," she said. "Last year, 26 female recruits were raped at the National Police Academy."

Today's violence is rooted in the civil war between left-wing guerrillas and right-wing governments between 1960 and 1996. The barbarity of that era, particularly during the early-1980s genocide against the indigenous Mayans by the forces of General Rios Montt, mirrored the atrocities in Chile and Argentina. But in Guatemala no one has ever been brought to book for war crimes.

Claudio Samayoa, a human rights activist, says the violence flourishes because of this culture of impunity.

"During the civil war, women were killed extremely violently by the military to give out a graphic message to communities that they should not support the rebels," he said. "There was never any moral condemnation from society, and so there now seems to be a fashion to kill," she said.

Last week, however, there was some optimism when the government and the UN signed an agreement to investigate killings carried out by clandestine armed groups.

Recent murders of human rights activists, judges, prosecutors, journalists and union leaders have been linked to these groups, said to have been active since the end of the civil war.

In 2003, Rios Montt, leader of the 1982-83 military junta, ran for the presidency but was defeated at the election. In July this year, Spanish judge Santiago Pedraz issued an international arrest warrant against him for crimes against humanity.