34 Displacement of the civilian population is notable […] due to its massive character and its destructive effect. […] It implies the dismemberment of families and communities, at the same time that the cultural ties that conformed their cohesion were altered. The terror without precedent […] unleashed the massive fleeing of diverse people, whose majority was formed by Mayan communities […]. The estimate of those displaced oscillates between 500 thousand and one million and a half persons in the most affected period (1981-1983), adding those that were internally displaced and those that were obligated to seek refuge outside the country. […] For some families the displacement was not longer than a few weeks; some others remained outside their community for years. Nevertheless[,] the grade of destruction and the effects that took place during their absence were frequently similar.126 124. In the same sense, the report, Guatemala, Never Again, stated that: Due to the material destruction of their belongings, their goods obtained and built over a lifetime and the fear of losing their lives, the inhabitants of these forced communities were dispersed and displaced to go to different places because of fear. […] For some of them, it serves as a stimulus to go back to their devastated communities, for others, on the other hand, it is not; due to the horror of the facts that obligated them to leave their community. Despite the desire to come back and recover their property, the fear makes them stay in the new location in which they settled.127 125. The violence of the armed conflict had a grave impact on the indigenous Mayan families, since it did not only cause, in many cases, the disappearance of one of the parents and/or separation of the children, but it also signified the abandonment of their communities and traditions.128 126. The Tribunal observes that the larger part of the indigenous Mayan population, specifically that of rural areas, live in communities which represent the minimum unit of social organization with an authority system of its own. The communities are territorial spaces, generally villages or hamlets, that have a legal-political structure based around an auxiliary Mayor’s office, that constitute a grid of social, economic, cultural, and religious relations.129 127. This context is the framework of the situation of the indigenous Mayan kaqchikel family Chitay Rodríguez, that was formed by the father Florencio Chitay Nech, the mother Marta Rodríguez Quex and the children Encarnación, Pedro, Eliseo, Estermerio and María Rosaura Chitay Rodríguez, that resided in the Municipality of San Martín Jilotepeque, Department of Chimaltenango (supra para. 70). 128. Florencio Chitay Rodríguez suffered three kidnapping attempts and attacks against his domicile. In November 1980, the first attack against the family domicile was registered, during which the kidnappers came to his home and shot machine guns at his house. The second attack took place a few days after; this time they entered the interior of the house and shot. At that moment, the children were spending the night in the house of their next 126 CEH, Guatemala: Memory of Silence, supra note 35, Tome IV, Chapter III, pages 119 and 120, para. 4193. 127 REMHI, Guatemala Nunca Más, supra note 35, fs. 1387 and 1388. 128 Cf. Expert opinion of Rosalina Tuyuc rendered during the public hearing at the Court on February 2, 2010. 129 CEH, Guatemala: Memory of Silence, supra note 35, Tome IV, Chapter III, page 164, para. 4328.