Disappeared children

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Hermelinda remembers losing her children during the “May Guinda,” and says she always wondered whether the military had taken them away.

Interviewee:

Transcription

[What happened after the guinda? After the disaster?]

Well, people were traumatized, because so many people had been lost and we couldn’t find them. We still wonder why we didn’t pick up the girls who were wounded. We don’t know if the army picked them up, because nowadays a lot of those people show up. We don’t know if they got picked up, or if they were buried. Who knows what they did, because we never found out. My husband went to take a look after we had passed through the gunfire. Two days later he went back, because his brother had worn new shoes, and his were ruined. He said,”I’m going to go see if I can find him, even if it's just for his shoes.” But he didn’t see anything, not even clothes that were left behind, or people who had died. Who knows what they did with them, but they fell and were left there when we moved on. So we still wonder what happened. Did the soldiers pick them up? What happened?