GUATEMALA CITY. Apr 2: Foreigners in Guatemala are keeping a low profile following a spate of attacks against tourists accused of stealing local children and selling their organs for transplants, reports Reuter.

"Now I don't even look at kids,'' said an American businessman waiting for a flight to Miami in Guatemala City’s international airport Friday.

He said he had been accosted last week in the capital by students brandishing a bloody pig's liver and asking him. "Gringo, how much will you pay for this organ."

The businessman, who asked not to be Identified, said he has stopped taking photos of Guatemalan children because of the hostile reaction that provoked

An American woman was in a coma Friday after having been savagely beaten Wednesday by a mob of peasants in northern Guatemala who caught her trying to photograph a local child.

June Weinstock. 51. a magazine editor an environmentalist from Fairbanks. Alaska, suffered severe head injuries and fractured arms after the attack in San Cristobal Vera-paz, 120 miles (190 km ) northeast of Guatemala City.

Doctors at Guatemala City’s Hererra Uerandl hospital said it was too early to tell whether she had suffered permanent brain damage.

Another American who had tried to interpret for Weinstock in San Cristobal Verapaz was also attacked by the mob but sustained only minor in-

juries.

The US embassy Thursday warned US citizens in Guatemala. not to travel alone, to avoid crowds and to take ’utmost' caution. The embassy also recalled more than 200 US peace corps volunteers to the capital from rural areas.

Child-snatching hysteria has hit Guatemala since Melissa Larson of New Mexico was ar rested and nearly lynched last month after villages in Santa Lucia Cotzumalguapa in southern Guatemala accused her of stealing a child. Larson spent two weeks in prison before being released for lack of evi-de'^?me hardy tourists are proceeding with their travel plans but many foreigners, shocked by attack on Weinstock. are avoiding remote areas.