El Salvador urged to respond to El Calabozo massacre survivors’ demands
El Salvador urged to respond to El Calabozo massacre survivors’ demands
1 November 2012
El Salvador must finally deliver justice for a brutal massacre that took place three decades ago, Amnesty International urged today in an open letter to President Mauricio Funes, as families across the country are set to mark the annual Day of the Dead religious festival.
More than 200 men, women and children were killed by an elite army unit at the El Calabozo massacre in the northern San Vicente region on 22 August, 1982. Three decades later, the Salvadoran authorities have yet to acknowledge the horrific murders or bring to justice those responsible.
More:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/el-salvador-urged-respond-el-calabozo-massacre-survivors-demands-2012-11-01
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22 August 2012
El Salvador: Killed in cold blood on the banks of the river at El Calabozo
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Operation ‘scorched earth’
After several days and nights of bombing raids, villagers heard rumours that the military were sending in ground troops to finish the job. Thousands of those still left in the area fled their homes, carrying their children and the small amount of food they could manage, as the wave of destruction surged forwards.
“The armed forces called the operation ‘scorched earth’, because they wanted to finish everything: people, animals – the cows that they saw, they killed. Horses, chickens, dogs, cats – they left the people with nothing. They burned the houses, they burned everything,” recalled Felicita, one of the survivors, when she met an Amnesty International researcher earlier this year.
Struggling through dense undergrowth in the midst of a heavy storm, in single file and carrying those less able to walk, families tried to escape the onslaught of the highly trained and heavily equipped professional armed forces.
On the evening of 21 August, a group of several hundred men, women and children had finally made it to the banks of the heavily swollen Amatitán River, at the point known as El Calabozo. They planned to move on again in the morning when the children had been able to rest.
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"The soldiers were up above and below the place, they were already close, so the people couldn't get away, so they started to close in on them. They didn't make them scared that they were going to kill them, they just said they were going to have them gather together, and asked the people to form a line....The people shouted not to kill them because of the children. But...the officer in charge gave the order that they had to shoot them, and so then there were the wails of the poor people," said Felicita, who had managed to hide in the undergrowth with one of her children a distance away.
Surviving the horror
The number of people killed that day is difficult to confirm. The soldiers, from the US-trained Atlacatl Battallion, reportedly threw acid on some of the bodies, and the river swept many of the dead away.
More:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/el-salvador-urged-respond-el-calabozo-massacre-survivors-demands-2012-11-01
