(hereinafter “the CEH”) calculated that “there were more than two hundred thousand dead and disappeared as a result of the internal armed conflict.”23 In addition, this Court has had occasion to rule in this regard in several cases submitted to it24 and has noted that, in the context of this internal armed conflict, the State applied the “National Security Doctrine,” using the concept of “internal enemy” that, although it initially referred to guerrilla organizations, was expanded to include other groups and persons,25 thereby, committing gross human rights violations against defenseless civilians, including women and children, some of a mass nature, such as the massacres.26 In addition, indigenous villages and campesino communities were a particular target of mass executions. Furthermore, in Guatemala at the time of the facts, there was a pattern of the separation of children from their families following the massacres perpetrated by the armed forces, and the abduction and illegal retention of these children, in some cases, by the soldiers themselves. 27. 34. Another consequence of the conflict was the displacement of people and communities, even outside national territory. The CEH indicated that the massacres and the devastation of villages that occurred between 1981 and 1983 led to the mass flight of Mayan communities and non-indigenous families. About 150,000 people sought safety in Mexico and about a third of them were placed in camps and were recognized as refugees by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).28 B. Events that occurred on April 29 and 30, 1982 35. Starting in the mid-1970s, the guerrilla or the rebel armed forces were active in the municipality of La Libertad, department of Petén, where the village of Los Josefinos was located. These groups frequently entered the village, where they had violent confrontations with the army. In particular, owing to these confrontations, the army carried out a series of assassinations and the capture of individuals accused of collaborating with the guerrilla in the said village in the time immediately prior to the events.29 36. During the morning of April 29, 1982, members of the guerrilla entered the village and summoned its inhabitants to the football pitch. There, they held a meeting and carried out an “act of retribution,” killing two men who, according to the guerrilla, had links to the Guatemalan Army. 30 Cf. Case of the Las Dos Erres Massacre v. Guatemala. Preliminary objection, merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of November 24, 2009. Series C No. 211, para. 70. 23 This Court has delivered judgment in five Guatemalan cases concerning nine massacres committed during the armed conflict, all of them perpetrated against such sectors of the population by members of the army, namely: Plan de Sánchez Massacre, Las Dos Erres Massacre, Río Negro Massacres, Members of the village of Chichupac and neighboring communities of the municipality of Rabinal, and Coc Max et al. (Xamán Massacre). 24 Cf. Case of Gudiel Álvarez et al. v. Guatemala. Merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of November 20, 2012. Series C No. 253, para. 54, and Case of Coc Max et al. (Xamán Massacre) v. Guatemala. Merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of August 22, 2018. Series C No. 356, para. 29. 25 26 Cf. CEH, Guatemala: Memory of Silence, June 1999, Chapter II, para. 739 (evidence file, folio 21156-21678). Cf. Case of the Río Negro Massacres v. Guatemala, supra, para. 60, and Case of the Las Dos Erres Massacre v. Guatemala. Preliminary objection, merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of November 24, 2009. Series C No. 211, para. 177. 27 Cf. Case of Coc Max et al. (Xamán Massacre) v. Guatemala. Merits, reparations and costs. Judgment of August 22, 2018. Series C No. 356, para. 31. 28 Cf. Notarized statement of César Armando Palencia Muralles of July 9, 2003 (evidence file, folio 3); Testimony of Francisco Gámez Ávila, January 1996 (evidence file, folio 16), and Testimony of César Armando Catalán Muralles, January 1996 (evidence file, folio 1778). 29 Cf. Notarized statement of César Armando Palencia Muralles of July 9, 2003 (evidence file, folio 3); Notarized statement of Antonio Ajanel Ortiz of July 9, 2003 (evidence file, folio 11), and Statement before the Public Prosecution Service by Otilio García Sermeño on January 25, 2007 (evidence file, folio 577). 30 12