First they came for shop owners and bus drivers, ordering them to pay protection money on pain of death.

Now the extortion gangs terrorising Peru have set their sights on fee-paying schools, threatening to kill staff or parents "inside or outside" the classroom unless they fork out tens of thousands of dollars.

Fearing for pupils' safety, hundreds of private schools have shut their doors and moved classes online in recent months, highlighting the worsening security crisis in the gang-plagued South American country.

The southern hemisphere's new school year began in March but for pupils of San Vicente primary and secondary school in northern Lima it only really started this week.

Classes had barely begun last month when a gang attacked the school with explosives for refusing to pay $27,000 in protection money.

No-one was injured in the attack, which damaged the entrance door, but the school's 1,200 students were immediately ordered to stay home for a month.

When they returned this week, children pulling brightly-colored bags on wheels and anxious parents gripping their........

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