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Daniele Volpe
Armando Interiano and Sebastiana Amador sued the Guatemalan government and won. A decade later, their lives haven’t changed much. From this porch, they can see the new home their neighbor is building with the dollars he’s earned working in the U.S. To pay for the journey, which costs thousands of dollars, they’d need a loan or land to sell. “We don’t have anywhere to go,” Amador says.
Sebastiana Amador helps her granddaughter, Floria, prepare for her visit to the local nurse. Amador was part of the same series of lawsuits on behalf of her two daughters, both of whom were malnourished. One of her daughters later died. Now, she hopes the same fate doesn’t await Floria.
On November 1, a day when families would normally be celebrating Día de los Muertos in the cemetery in San Juan Comalapa, the gates are shut and the area is empty. Due to the risk of spreading COVID-19, Guatemalan authorities forbade access to the country’s cemeteries.
Flowers adorn the tombs of unidentified victims of Guatemala’s conflict. On November 1, an important day for commemorating the dead, just a few families visited this memorial in San Juan Comalapa, which is normally the scene of a large event. This memorial was built on the site of mass graves holding hundreds of unidentified bodies. Two years ago, they were reinterred in burial niches as a memorial to victims of state repression.
A few days before Día de los Muertos, families lingered around the tombs of their loved ones and children flew kites in the cemetery of San Juan Comalapa, in Guatemala. In normal years, November 1 and 2 would be consumed by visits, eating, drinking, and singing. This year, due to COVID-19, Guatemalan authorities restricted access to cemeteries after October 30 to deter crowds.
In San Juan Comalapa, Leonel Sotz visits the tomb of his father, Basilio Sotz Morales, who was kidnapped by the Guatemalan Army in 1982. His remains were found in 2003 and identified in 2014 through a DNA test. After a 36-year civil war, the country is still working to find more than 45,000 missing civilians.