Mudslide victims exhumed one year after hurricane
Source: Reuters
By Mica Rosenberg PANABAJ, Guatemala, Nov 14 (Reuters) - Forensic anthropologists, experts at exhuming mass graves from Guatemala's civil war, dug on Tuesday to find hundreds of bodies buried by a mudslide during last year's Hurricane Stan. Entire families were buried alive last Oct. 5, when weeks of nonstop rain caused a deadly slick of mud, rocks and trees to crash down the side of a volcano in one of Latin America's biggest natural disasters of recent years. Rescuers abandoned the site as a mass grave after days of digging, leaving the bodies trapped under hundreds of tons of mud. The anthropologists expect to find between 250 and 300 bodies during the exhumation, which could take more than four months. The exact number of dead is still unknown. The job is a new field for Guatemala's Forensic Anthropology Foundation, which has spent years excavating and identifying the remains of victims from the country's 36-year civil war that killed over 200,000. Most were killed by state security forces and buried in secret graves before the government and leftist guerrillas signed peace accords in 1996. "This is not a political crime scene, which makes things a lot easier. We don't feel our security is at stake here," said foundation director Fredy Peccerelli at the disaster site. He has received many death threats for his war-related work. The area around Panabaj was a hot spot during the war, with tensions culminating in 1990 when drunken soldiers killed 13 locals. Now villagers, some victims of both tragedies, want to put their dead to rest. A Tzutujil-speaking Mayan priest clouded in pine incense smoke, asked permission from Mother Earth to begin digging over a burning offering of colored candles and sweet bread. Concepcion Queju, whose husband and son disappeared during the war, lost 12 family members in the landslide. "Even if they only find some of their bones I want to take them to the cemetery where I can visit them and bring flowers," she said.
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