Colombia to unearth 'world's largest urban mass grave': official

[Judi Lynn]

Fri Jul 17, 2015 1:41pm EDT

Colombia to unearth 'world's largest urban mass grave': official

By Anastasia Moloney


MEDELLIN, Colombia (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - For the past seven years, Luz Elena Galeano has been searching for her husband who was last seen being forced off a bus by armed men in the Colombian city of Medellin. Her quest to find her husband, and father of her two children, could soon be over.

Colombian authorities have announced work will begin on July 27 to unearth what they say is the world's largest urban mass grave, located in a garbage tip in a sprawling mountainside slum known as Comuna 13 in western Medellin.

"For the size of the area, for the number of people who could be buried in this zone ... it has been said that this is the largest urban mass grave in the world," Jorge Mejia, an adviser in Medellin mayor's office, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Galeano blames her husband's disappearance on right-wing paramilitary fighters, who she believes killed him and dumped his body in the landfill, along with scores of other victims of Colombia's civil war over the past two decades.

More:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/07/17/us-colombia-mass-graves-idUSKCN0PR1YT20150717

[Judi Lynn]

1. Colombia to begin large-scale excavation of mass grave

Colombia to begin large-scale excavation of mass grave
Jul 17, 5:16 PM EDT

BOGOTA (AP) -- Colombian officials will soon begin exhumation of a mass grave that could prove to be the largest in the country's history, authorities said Friday.

The grisly work of unearthing the mass grave in Medellin, Colombia's second-largest city, will begin on July 27 and will likely take months to complete. The bodies are believed to be the result of years of fighting among right-wing paramilitaries, leftist guerrillas and drug traffickers.

. . .

She said it could be "the largest" judicial exhumation in Colombia's history. Officials received information on the mass burial site from demobilized paramilitary fighters.

The country's five-decade long civil war has left the landscape pockmarked with unmarked grave. In recent years, officials have exhumed thousands of bodies and attempted to return the remains to family members. Workers use DNA to match bodies with people reported missing.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LT_COLOMBIA_EXHUMATION?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2015-07-17-16-38-53