From 1960 to 1996 forty-five thousand people were classified as missing (“disappeared”) from Guatemala’s internal armed conflict. The Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation (FAFG) was formed to search, recover and analyze human skeletal remains of the thousands of Guatemalans killed during the 36-year armed conflict. Since 1992 FAFG has performed over 1,000 exhumations and recovered over 5,000 victims’ remains. Mr. Fredy Peccerelli is a founding member of the FAFG and has been directly involved in the investigation of over 150 mass grave sites. He has also led forensic archaeological investigations of war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina for the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. During the Regional Forensic Assistance Network partnership between Creative Learning and FAFG, Mr. Peccerelli oversaw the project in Guatemala and acted as liaison officer with Creative Learning Washington DC team.
Above is a Ted Talk Mr. Peccerelli gave about his experience and the importance of identification and closure for a post-conflict society.
