There is concern for the safety of relatives of victims and witnesses of massacres perpetrated by the Guatemalan army between 1980 and 1982 in the department of El Quiche. Exhumation of a clandestine cemetery in the grounds of the church of San Andres Sajcabaja began at the end of April 1997 and since then several women have suffered death threats and intimidation, allegedly by former members of civil defence patrols and former military commissioners.
