On 5 December 1982, the Guatemalan army entered the village of Los Dos Erres in Peten Department in the north of Guatemala. When they left three days later it is estimated that more than 350 men, women and children had been massacred. In July 1994 the independent Argentinian Forensic Anthropology Team began work on exhumation of the bodies. They recovered the remains of at least 162 people. Of these 67 were children under the age of 12. There are allegedly over one hundred clandestine cemeteries in Guatemala where thousands on non-combatant civilians are believed to be buried. The majority of them are indigenous peasants who were killed or “disappeared” during counter-insurgency operations in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. AI calls on the Guatemalan government to ensure that all those responsible for the long-term and gross pattern of human rights violations are brought to justice.
