You're not alone': Guatemalan anthropologist offers support for unmarked graves searches
Fredy Peccerelli says Indigenous communities can and should develop own forensic anthropology capacity
Brett Forester · CBC News · Posted: Mar 05, 2023 3:00 AM CST | Last Updated: 4 hours ago
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Workers with the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala excavate remains in Guatemala. The foundation was created in 1997 following the end of the country's 36-year internal conflict. (FAFG)
Warning: This story contains distressing details.
The head of a Guatemalan forensic anthropology group is offering his support for Indigenous communities in Canada as they investigate unmarked burials linked to residential schools.
When he was nine, Fredy Peccerelli's family fled Guatemala's civil war to New York City after his father was threatened by government death squads, but he later resolved to return.
Today, after leading searches for the war's mostly Mayan victims for 26 years, he's known as one of Guatemala's foremost experts in the field, and he's willing to share his expertise with Indigenous communities here.
"You're not alone," he said.
"Your Mayan brothers and sisters have gone through this for the last many decades searching for their loved ones."
More:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/indigenous/fafg-peccerelli-guatemala-unmarked-graves-1.6765949
