The remains of 163 people, who were massacred in Guatemala's civil war, have been delivered to their relatives, officials say.
On Saturday, the bodies of victims of the 1982 Dos Erres massacre were given to their families who shouldered wooden coffins and took them to a local cemetery.
The carnage took place in Dos Erres, a small village in northern Guatemala, during the decades-long civil war on December 6, 1982. It was under the military rule of former dictator Efrain Rios Montt who stands trial for genocide.
At the time of the killings, the army was searching for 40 guns stolen by a guerrilla unit the previous October.
Dos Erres was invaded since the villagers were thought to be supportive of the guerrillas.
After the exhumation of the bodies, five soldiers were found guilty for the incident and were put on trial. They were sentenced to 6,000 years in jail, although Guatemala's utmost prison term is 50 years.
A UN-backed fact-finding committee registered 669 massacres during the civil war, of which 626 were attributed to government forces.
The Guatemalan conflict began in 1960 and continued for 36 years. According to a 1999 UN-sponsored report, some 200,000 people lost their lives or went missing during the clashes.
Sunday 8 December 2013
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/12/08/338783/163-guatemalan-bodies-given-to-families/
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