El Salvador Civil War

Walking around the outskirts of the city, I spot a crowd on a bridge overlooking a sewer. They are staring at the bloated corpse of a chucho (dog) in the sewage. A woman approaches me. “Are you a reporter?” she asks. She explains that her eighteen-year-old nephew was kidnapped from his house the night before by men wearing civilian clothes.

When I tell her there is nothing I can do, she calmly walks away. There is something fatalistic about her lack of emotion. She knows that her nephew, who may be a guerrilla, is a desaparecido (disappeared one) – and that tomorrow, the body in the sewer may not be a chucho.