Anonymous bones of civil war dead laid to rest

[Judi Lynn]

JULY 09, 2018

In this small rural town, the anonymous remains of some of the tens of thousands who disappeared during Guatemala's long and bloody civil war can finally rest in peace.

Women from the village of San Juan Comalapa, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Guatemala City, spent years saving money and raising donations to buy a plot of land where an army camp once stood. During the 1960-1996 conflict, people from across the country were abducted and brought here by soldiers, then were tortured, killed and buried in mass graves.

Since 2003, forensic anthropologists have dug up at least 220 individual remains in the town, but only about a quarter of those could be matched to relatives. Those bones that could not be identified have now been interred at the forest location of the former camp, with three of the mass graves left open in a nod to historical memory.



On a recent day a truck rolled past with 172 coffins strapped to the flatbed. They were smaller than normal coffins, containing just collections of bones rather than whole skeletons. Women in colorful embroidered skirts and white shawls carried bouquets of flowers in a solemn procession behind the truck.

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More:
https://apimagesblog.com/blog/2018/7/9/anonymous-bones-of-civil-war-dead-laid-to-rest




a mural on a wall of San Juan Comalapa