20
95.
Approximately 56 victims were identified. See. Annex of the present report.
5.
The massacre in the village of Los Toriles
96.
The village of Los Toriles was located immediately next to the village of Ranchería. The
testimony gathered by the Tutela Legal indicates that on December 12, 1981 “families were assembled
and then machine-gunned, including women with newborn children. These murders continued until
around midday. The survivors who were in hiding could hear people shouting and weeping and the
97
soldiers answering “not to get upset because it wasn’t going to hurt.”
97.
One of the survivors said he saw a family assembled in the yard of their home and heard
a soldier shout: “this is where the guerrillas eat, you swine, we saw them come here yesterday (...).
Because you are lying you are going to die here.” Another soldier came up and said “why are you telling
these swine so much? Shut them up for good! You know what your orders are”. According to this
testimony, some people were still alive but wounded after the shooting, and the soldiers exploded five
98
grenades in their midst.
98.
Maria Teofila Pereira testified that on December 12, 1981 she was in her home in Los
Toriles when a helicopter landed and she saw a soldier get out. She went outside with her mother and her
youngest child in her arms. Upon hearing shooting, her mother went back to the house, and Maria
followed with her child, hiding near an almond tree and a stone fence “because the shooting was very
heavy and I could even hear bombs, and at around 10 o’clock in the morning I heard a boy shouting and
then there was shooting and I heard nothing more. (...). At around 100 m from where I was hiding with my
child in my arms, they killed a dozen people and I suppose they were soldiers, because the radio was
99
announcing that the Atlacatl Battalion was about to launch an operation.”
99.
She reported that at 7 p.m. she saw dead people, including children with their throats cut.
She had to bury her mother there. She also buried other persons she found and she had to sleep in the
100
bush with her child, forgoing basic necessities, because all the houses had been burned.
100.
When the families had been killed, the Atlacatl Battalion third company left the villages of
Los Toriles and Ranchería and went to Guacamaya. On the road to Guacamaya, Captain Salazar, in
command of the company, assembled his soldiers to give them encouragement. According to testimony
gathered by the Tutela Legal, he asked them not to talk about the massacre with anyone, not even their
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families. He explained that “war is hard” and that if a soldier had to kill his mother he would do it.
101.
Approximately 82 victims were identified. See. Annex of the present report.
6.
The massacre in the village of Jocote Amarillo
102.
The village of Jocote Amarillo was located about 2 km to the south of El Mozote. The
inhabitants of Jocote Amarillo already knew about the military operation and the murders that had
occurred in other places, and so many of them fled into the bush before the soldiers arrived. However,
other persons took refuge in this place, precisely because it was further away and they did not believe the
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soldiers would get there. Those who remained were in for a bad surprise.
97
Tutela Legal, op. cit.
98
Tutela Legal, op. cit.
99
Statement of Maria Teofila Pereira before the Second Court of First Instance of San Francisco Gotera, January 23,
1991, Court record (Annex 2 to the petitioners’ communication of July 7, 2006).
100
Ibid.
101
Tutela Legal, op. cit.
102
Ibid.