Country Reports - El Salvador
EAAF conducted a mission to El Salvador at the request of Tutela Legal, the human rights office of the Archdiocese of San Salvador, to carry out a preliminary investigation into the 1932 massacre of Izalco.
EAAF members traveled to El Salvador to assess the work that remained to be completed in EAAF's long-standing forensic investigation of the El Mozote massacre. While there, at the request of Tutela Legal, we also conducted a preliminary investigation of a recently-come-to-light massacre site called El Barrío.
In 2001, EAAF members undertook a mission to El Salvador at the request of Tutela Legal, as part of the ongoing investigation into the 1982 massacre at El Mozote. At the same time, EAAF worked with and trained professionals at the Institute of Legal Medicine of Santa Tecla.
At the request of Tutela Legal, a local human rights organization, EAAF continues exhumations of the El Mozote massacre that were halted in 1993. Collaboration and training with the local Medical Legal Institute.
A mission at the request of Tutela Legal, the human rights legal office of the Archbishop of San Salvador, to explore the possibility of resuming forensic work related to the El Mozote Case, suspended eight years ago by an amnesty
Annual Report 1992
The team continued its work with Tutela Legal on the El Mozote case, one of the most severe cases of human rights violations that occurred during El Salvador's 12-year civil war. In a first mission, members of the team participated were nominated as expert witnesses in the judicial case opened in the province of Morazán, but did not obtain permission to begin exhumations.
The team interviewed family members of victims to gather testimonies, conducted an intensive seminar on forensic anthropology for judges, government officials, committees of families of the disappeared, members of non-governmental organizations and forensic experts from all over the country.
In a second mission, the team served as technical consultants for the United Nations Truth Commission and began started excavations, discovering more than 141 skeletons inside of one site, from which 134 corresponded to children under 10 years of age, as well as substantial bullet fragments and spent gun cartridges. The team provided a report with its findings to the court in Morazán and to the United Nations Commission on the Truth.
Annual Report 1991
In 1991, the team was invited by three committees of the disappeared, CO-MADRES, COMAFAC, and CODEFAM and the American Association for the Advancement of Science to plan forensic projects in El Salvador and discuss the training of a Salvadoran forensic anthropology team. The team also began initial discussions with Tutela Legal about serving as expert witnesses in the case of the "El Mozote" massacre, in which at least 792 people were killed in an offensive in December, 1981. More than 40% of those murdered were under ten years old.
