Data from the Institute of Legal Medicine confirm that almost 30 bones found in 2021 in the Las Flores neighborhood, where the graves were found in the house of a former police officer, were not identified.
Every year hundreds of bodies found in the streets, bagged or wrapped in sheets are buried in areas of public cemeteries designated for “unidentified” bodies by the Institute of Legal Medicine (IML). The total of bodies buried with that label has decreased since 2017, when 527 bodies were found and unidentified. Last year, the figure was 191, according to data provided by the IML through its Unit for Access to Public Information (UAIP). Among those bodies are 27 found in the Las Flores neighborhood between May 10 and June 14. Only in two cases, the IML determined the age and sex of the victims: they were two men, one 40 years old and the other 25. In the rest of the cases, the IML was unable to determine either the age or the sex .
With this information, El Diario de Hoy formulated three questions: In which cemetery were these unidentified bodies buried? Were DNA samples taken from each of these bodies? What type of death was determined for each of these unidentified bodies?
The questions were sent, via email, on April 20, to the person in charge of the Communications unit of the Judicial Branch, but as of the closing of this note, no response had been received.
those identified
When the discovery of the bodies buried inside the house of a former police officer, who later became a beneficial witness in the case against 11 other people, came to light, it was only known that approximately 40 bodies had been found in that place. .
To the 27 unidentified bodies are added those of another 10 victims who were identified and whose bodies were handed over to their families by the IML. The identified victims are: Mirna Lima Cruz, Alexis Palomo Lima, Jacquelinne Cristina Palomo Lima; Carlos X. (brother of the former police officer turned witness with benefits); Dania Patricia Pérez Linares, Edis Patricia Linares, Helen Lorena Pérez Linares, Josué Gabriel Morán Linares and the minor GS To this list of those identified is added that of a victim whose name has not been released, but whose brother shared the news on his twitter account. When El Diario de Hoy wrote to him for more information about the case, the young man declined to speak.
In total, the IML handed over 12 identified bodies to their respective families.
In this way, the data indicates that at least 40 bodies were found in the Las Flores neighborhood between May 10 and June 14, 2021 and only 33% were identified.
In a country where the disappearance of people keeps hundreds of families in anxiety, the fact of not having a DNA bank to solve the cases of the disappeared is one of the State’s greatest debts with the victims and their families. This is how Zaira Navas, legal head of Security at Cristosal, considers it, who has pointed out several times that the families of the victims do not have the necessary support from the State in the search for their relatives.
In February, a group of families of the disappeared launched the El Salvador Search Block for the Disappeared. The initiative seeks that families are taken into account in the search processes and help each other in that process. The initiative has the support of Fespad, Cristosal, Alerta Raquel and the Due Process of Law Foundation (DPLF). When the relatives of the disappeared presented the initiative, they recalled that “the remains found in clandestine graves must be scientifically identified.”