GUATEMALA CITY -- More than 2,000 firearms are missing from the armories of Guatemala's National Civilian Police, or PNC, the force's director says.

Marlene Blanco was quoted Wednesday by the press as saying that the inventory is ongoing and that the number of weapons listed as missing could rise.

Among the unaccounted-for weapons are AK-47 assault rifles and Uzi submachine guns, the PNC chief said, acknowledging that some of the missing police arms have been used to commit crimes.

Blanco also said that she knew of at least one judge, whom she declined to name, who was carrying a police-issue Uzi for personal protection.

The director complained that the PNC was both outmanned and outgunned by the criminal elements blamed for upwards of 5,000 murders this year in Guatemala, a nation of around 13 million people.

"While the criminals carry AK-47s, for us they buy lower caliber (weapons) and sometimes even defective ones," said Blanco, who took charge of the PNC in late September.

With 18,534 officers, the PNC is hard-pressed to maintain even a minimal level of public safety in the Central American country, where murders are running at an average of 17 per day.

The more than 5,400 homicides reported so far this year in Guatemala is roughly equal to the number of murders in neighboring Mexico, which has more than 100 million inhabitants and is the scene of open war among rival drug cartels.