El Salvador’s new president vows reparations for massacre
Posted June 18, 2019 10:32 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador — El Salvador’s newly inaugurated president has promised to comply with reparations ordered by an international court for relatives of the victims of the El Mozote massacre, one of the bloodiest chapters of the country’s 1980-1992 civil war.
Some 978 residents of the village of El Mozote, including 477 children, were killed in 1981 by soldiers who entered the area looking for guerrillas but who killed civilians instead.
In 2012, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights condemned the Salvadoran state for the massacre and ordered reparations. But victims’ relatives say the reparations have been only half fulfilled or not fulfilled at all.
President Nayib Bukele, who took office June 1, promised Tuesday to carry out the reparations and make El Mozote “an example of development for the rest of the country.”
Marcos Aleman, The Associated Press
