The El Calabozo massacre was an incident during the

Salvadoran Civil War The Salvadoran Civil War ( es, guerra civil de El Salvador) was a twelve year period of civil war in El Salvador that was fought between the government of El Salvador and the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), a coalition or ...

on 21–22 August 1982, in which more than two hundred people, including children and elderly, were reportedly killed at El Calabozo by the

Atlácatl Battalion The Atlácatl Battalion ( Spanish: ) was a rapid-response, counter-insurgency battalion of the Salvadoran Army created in 1981. It was implicated in some of the most infamous massacres of the Salvadoran Civil War, and as a result, it was disband ...

of the

Salvadoran Army The Salvadoran Army (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Ejército Salvadoreño'') is the land branch and largest of the Armed Forces of El Salvador. Conflicts The Football War The Football War (also called The Soccer War or 100-hours War) was a ...

. In August 1982, the Salvadoran military attacked the

San Vicente Department San Vicente () is a department of El Salvador in the center of the country. The capital is San Vicente. On October 4, 1834, San Vicente City of Austria and Lorenzana (Ciudad de San Vicente de Austria y Lorenzana) was made the capital of State ...

, an area where the rebel

Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front The Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front ( es, Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional, FMLN) is a left-wing political party in El Salvador. The FMLN was formed as an umbrella group on 10 October 1980, from five leftist gu ...

was known to have bases. The department was bombed for several days before ground forces advanced, causing many civilians to flee. On the night of August 21, a group of

internally displaced people An internally displaced person (IDP) is someone who is forced to leave their home but who remains within their country's borders. They are often referred to as refugees, although they do not fall within the legal definitions of a refugee. A ...

was overtaken beside the

Amatitán river Amatitán is the head of a municipality in the Mexican state of Jalisco, and is home to one of the world's largest tequila distilleries. It is the location of “La Hacienda de San José del Refugio”, a distillery which makes “ Tequila Herr ...

by the Atlácatl Battalion, a US-trained counter-insurgency unit. The Atlácatl Battalion had previously been responsible for the El Mozote massacre, in which 811 captured civilians had been killed in the town of

El Mozote El Mozote is a village in the Morazán Department in El Salvador. It was the site of the El Mozote massacre during the civil war in December 1981 when nearly 1,000 civilians were killed by a Salvadoran Army unit known as the Atlácatl Battalion. ...

At a spot called "El Calabozo" ("The Dungeon"), the battalion surrounded the IDPs and opened fire at close range. The soldiers threw some of the bodies into the river and reportedly threw acid on others, making an exact death toll impossible to confirm, but more than two hundred were reported missing after the incident by surviving family members. The dead included infants and elderly. The massacre was first publicly reported in

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

on September 8, 1982. Minister of Defense

José Guillermo García José Guillermo García (born 25 June 1933) is a former general of the military of El Salvador and was minister of defense of the Revolutionary Government Junta of El Salvador between the years 1979 and 1983. Emigration to United States He e ...

stated that the government had investigated the incident and determined that no massacre had taken place. In 1992, survivors filed a complaint with authorities asking for an investigation. Though the

Commission on the Truth for El Salvador The Truth Commission for El Salvador ( es, Comisión de la Verdad para El Salvador) was a restorative justice truth commission approved by the United Nations to investigate the grave wrongdoings that occurred throughout the country's twelve year ...

documented the massacre's existence, the government closed the case in 1993 without charges. As of 2012, the Salvadoran government had not acknowledged the existence of the massacre or prosecuted those responsible.

References

{{coord missing, El Salvador 1982 in El Salvador Massacres in 1982 History of El Salvador Human rights abuses in El Salvador Massacres in El Salvador Military scandals Salvadoran Civil War San Vicente Department August 1982 events in North America

See also

References