JPG

One December day in 1981, U.S.-trained troops of the Salvadoran army’s Atlacatl battalion converged on the rural hamlet of El Mozote, located in the eastern department of Morazán. There they rounded up the inhabitants of the surrounding caseríos and proceeded systematically to massacre the 1,000 or so peasants who called the village home. Only one person, Rufina Amaya, survived to tell the story.

El Jardín de los Inocentes, the Garden of the Innocents, marks the former location of the church outbuilding where the children of El Mozote were gathered and machine-gunned to death. As I walked through the garden I was told, and my own eyes confirmed, that the roses peeking between the broken flagstones of the floor grow blood-red. !El Mozote nunca más!