During three days, executives, professionals and technicians of the Victims' Unit met with representatives of the Directive Council of Registry of Victims of El Mozote (El Salvador) to exchange experiences and information on various topics related to victims of internal armed conflicts of the two countries.

The Victims Unit continues to position itself in Latin America as an entity with extensive experience in providing attention, assistance and reparation to victims of armed conflict, which has made it an international technical consultant consulted by other countries.

Mexico, Guatemala, Peru and now El Salvador have shown interest in exchanging experiences and information with the Unit, which is the Colombian entity in charge of leading the implementation of Law 1448 of 2011 and which serves about 9 million survivors of violence registered in the Single Victims Registry.

For three days, managers, professionals and technicians of the mission areas of Unit, explained to the representatives of El Salvador how the various processes of the entity are developed, what the lessons have been in eight years of experience and which are the greatest challenges in attention, assistance and reparation to the victims of armed conflict.

Nicolás Fernández de Soto, international cooperation coordinator of the Victims Unit, explains what the meeting was about: "We had six people from El Salvador in an exchange of information on all the issues that the Victims Unit has worked on, because in El Salvador he wants to learn about registration, reparations, about how the Unit has been serving and prioritizing these victims".

From the Central American country came several members of El Mozote Board victims registry, government delegates, and the Directorate General of Statistics and Censuses (Dygestic) and victims of El Mozote massacre, who also shared their experience and expressed multiple concerns, especially related to the Single Registry of Victims and the execution of integral reparation measures to the victims.

Roxana Ivonne Argueta Vásquez, director of government coordination of the Technical and Planning Secretariat of the Presidency of El Salvador, highlighted "everything that Colombia has advanced in the lifting of the registry of victims and all the institutions and regulations that it has created to strengthen the reparation processes to the victims; that is an experience that El Salvador can learn greatly and replicate in the country".

The representative of victims of El Mozote and nearby places, Corina Maribel Bonilla Mejía, highlighted the work of the three days: "We have learned a lot, I was shocked to know how they have been working well ordered and at the same time they have had an essence that has helped to exemplify each problem of these communities".

What is known as the massacre of El Mozote and surrounding communities, are actually successive massacres committed in 1981 by members of El Salvador Armed Forces. The registry of these victims of El Salvador has been formed in development of an international sentence that condemned the State for the facts and consists of 1,725 ​​people among executed, survivors, displaced persons and their families, as explained by El Salvador spokespersons.

The Presidential Agency for International Cooperation (APC) was also present at the bilateral meetings, as well as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Nations Agency for Refugees (UNHCR).

Manuel Oviedo, liaison officer at Acnur Colombia, said that "Colombia has made a decisive progress in recognizing and guaranteeing the rights of victims and we are sure that these cooperation processes will favor other countries that are on the same path. UNHCR favors and accompanies this type of exchange".

In the three days of work, the Unit intervened delegates of the Registry and Management of Information, valuation and registration, the National Information Network, Social and Community Management, Collective Reparation, Returns and relocations, individual reparation, and of the technical coordination of the National System of Attention and Integral Reparation to Victims (Snariv).

Within a few months, exchanges of experiences and information between the two countries will continue to strengthen the processes of registration, attention, assistance and comprehensive reparation to victims.

(Fin/DRR/LMY)