Main content

Finding El Salvador's missing children

How investigators in El Salvador found hundreds of children kidnapped by the army during the civil war in the 1980s

At the end of El Salvador's civil war human rights investigators began the search for hundreds of children reportedly kidnapped by the army during anti-guerrilla operations. In early 1994, two years after the end of the conflict, the first six children were located in an orphanage in the capital San Salvador. Among them was Maria Elsy Dubon, who had been seized by soldiers who killed her father in May 1982. Mike Lanchin has been hearing about Maria Elsy's distressing ordeal and about the difficult reunion she later had with her biological family, who believed that she was dead.

(Photo: Peasants who lost their children during military operations in the civil war at a rally in March 2006 (YURI CORTEZ/AFP/Getty Images)

Available now

9 minutes

Last on

Tue 20 Aug 2019 12:50GMT

Broadcasts

  • Tue 20 Aug 2019 07:50GMT
  • Tue 20 Aug 2019 12:50GMT

Podcast