The full legislature declared this Wednesday, with 76 votes, Rufina Amaya, the only survivor of the El Mozote massacre, committed in December 1981, “Deserving Post Mortem Daughter”.
The Salvadoran woman, who died in March 2007, witnessed the massacre committed by the members of the Atlacatl battalion of the Armed Forces, on December 11, 1981, in the El Mozote hamlet, in the municipality of Meanguera, in Morazán.
The head of the Nuevas Ideas fraction, Christian Guevara, stressed that Rufina Amaya is a symbol of truth, justice, and suffering. At the same time, he accused the previous governments, Arena and FMLN, of having “abandoned” it.
Legislator Ana Figueroa pointed out that this recognition is significant for the country, since Amaya is a symbol after “having endured having her children taken from her and had to fight for her life during the civil war.”
The legislators granted the distinction because she sought justice for the residents, despite the fact that she was victimized and threatened by military forces, to the point that they forced her to leave the place where she always lived, said deputies from Nuevas Ideas.
Amaya (1942-2007), testified to the events that occurred when in the armed conflict that the country experienced, the army murdered more than 900 people and hundreds of children from El Mozote and nearby places.
#Plenary91 "This recognition of Rufina Amaya is something very significant for the country. She endured having her children taken from her and she had to fight for her life during the civil war"deputy @anamag_figueroa. pic.twitter.com/Xb1wteScbC
– Legislative Assembly
(@AsambleaSV) January 18, 2023
(@AsambleaSV) Rufina Amaya, born in 1943, was a native of the Guacamaya canton, El Mozote farmhouse, in Meanguera, Morazán. She witnessed when her husband and her four children died at the hands of soldiers who broke into the houses of the hamlet to finish off the residents.
Amaya denounced the Salvadoran State in 1981, but the authorities at the time paid no attention to him.
In 1993, the file was opened before the Truth Commission of the United Nations (UN) where the perpetrators of the massacre were identified. The testimony given by the sole survivor of this event allowed the murderers to be identified and responsibilities deduced.
