Guatemala digs up mass graves in hopes of finding hundreds of disappeared from civil war
By APFriday, February 26, 2010
Guatemala digs up graves in search for disappeared
GUATEMALA CITY — Guatemalan authorities have begun digging up mass graves at a cemetery where hundreds of people who disappeared during the Central American country’s civil war are believed buried.
An official from the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation says 889 people could be buried at the Verbena Cemetery. Jose Suasnavar says investigators hope DNA testing will identify them.
Some 240,000 people, mostly Mayan Indians, vanished or died during Guatemala’s 36-year civil war that ended in 1996. Some of the victims were buried in the Verbena Cemetery’s mass graves when no relative came forward to claim their bodies.
Suasnavar says the exhumations and testing could take up to a year. He spoke Friday after the exhumations began.
