22 8. Subsequent days and cover-up of the massacres 111. According to statements by survivors, in the days following the massacres, those people who had been able to take refuge in the countryside returned to their homes in search of their relatives. Some of them found bodies that were burned, dismembered or in an advanced stage of decomposition, which made it difficult to identify their loved ones. Other persons were able to identify the bodies of their relatives, friends and neighbors, and proceeded to bury them in common or individual graves, depending on the circumstances. As a result, when it came time to cooperate in the subsequent exhumations, some 112 of the survivors were able to indicate exactly where their relatives and acquaintances were buried , 113 while others were quite unsure of where the bodies had been laid. 112. Following the massacres some of the few survivors – terrorized, their houses destroyed and their means of livelihood gone – took refuge in Honduras, where they attempted to start a new life. 114 The available statements indicate that some returned to El Salvador in the early 1990s . There is no complete list of the persons who had to flee to Honduras as a result of the massacres. Nor is there more detailed information on how many people returned to El Salvador and how many remained outside the country. 113. From the evidence on the file, the persons who moved to Honduras as a result of the massacres were: 114. Approximately 10 identified victims. 115. For several years the massacres at El Mozote and neighboring locales were covered up. According to the IDHUCA report, “an Army spokesman, Colonel Alfonso Coto, insisted that the stories of 115 a massacre committed by military personnel were ‘totally false’ and had been invented by subversives” . There is no evidence that investigations of any kind were initiated into the massacres prior to 1990. 116. The denial of these events extended to the international community, which failed to react to reports about the massacres. For example, the journalists Alma Guillermoprieto of the Washington Post and Raymond Bonner of the New York Times both published reports on January 27, 1982, offering the first evidence that the Salvadoran army had “engaged in a brutal slaughter of civilians”. The 116 documentation refers to more than 700 people murdered, primarily children, women and older adults . Both press stories were dismissed as “FMLN propaganda” by other US media. For its part, the US government held that there was no evidence “to confirm that government forces systematically massacred civilians in the operation zone”, adding that “there were probably no more than 300 people living in El Mozote at the time of the massacre”. The available information indicates that these versions 112 Statements of Domingo Vigil Amaya, Juan Bautista Márquez, María Teófila Pereira, Rufina Amaya Amaya, Sotero Guevara Martínez, Genaro Sánchez, and María Amanda Martínez, all of May 14, 1992, Court record (Annex 2 to the petitioners’ communication of July 7, 2006). 113 Statements of Bernardino Guevara Chicas and Hilario Sanchez Gomez, both of May 14, 1992, Court record (Annex 2 to the petitioners’ communication of July 7, 2006). 114 Statements of Juan Bautista Marquez, October 30, 1990; Irma Ramos Marquez, October 31, 1990; Hilario Sanchez Gomez, November 28, 1990; Bernardino Guevara Chicas, January 23, 1991; Lucila Romero Martinez, January 24, 1991; Domingo Vigil Amaya, January 30, 1991; and Juan Bautista Marquez, March 11, 1990, all given before the Second Court of First Instance of San Francisco Gotera, Court record (Annex 2 to the petitioners’ communication of July 7, 2006). See also: publication of November 13, 1991, “Church demands investigation of brutal killing of campesinos in 1981.” Carlos Mario Marquez, referring to a report of the Tutela Legal. 115 IDHUCA report, Consideraciones sobre la impunidad a propósito de la masacre del El Mozote (“Considerations on Impunity with Respect to the El Mozote Massacre”), No. 451 of November 7, 1990 (quoting “Weakness and deceit, 1984 Raymond Bonner, p. 340”). 116 Americas Watch. The Massacre at El Mozote: The Need to Remember. March 4, 1992. (Annexed to the petitioners’ communication of April 24, 1992)