Central America
Experts exhume some El Salvador massacre victims
AFP
Forensic experts on Monday started exhuming the remains of at least 16 victims, mainly children, of a massacre committed by soldiers in El Salvador 41 years ago.
They were among nearly 1,000 people slain in and around El Mozote in the country’s northeast by soldiers who accused the village of aiding leftist guerrillas in El Salvador’s bloody 1980-1992 civil war.
Buried in two mass graves, attempts will be made to identify the victims using DNA technology, said Silvana Turner of Argentina’s EAAF forensic anthropology unit conducting the operation with Salvadoran colleagues.
Lawyer David Morales of the Cristosal victims’s organization said most of the 16 victims known to have been buried here were children.
The El Mozote massacre, which took place over five days in December 1981. was the worst episode of El Salvador’s internal conflict, which left more than 75,000 dead and more than 7,000 people missing.
It was one of the deadliest massacres in Latin American history.
Soldiers of the Atlacatl Battalion — a counter-insurgency command trained by the United States — burnt homes, raped women and killed all the villagers they could find.
Some children were thrown in the air and slashed with machetes, according to survivor accounts.
According to official figures, 986 people — 558 of them children — died in El Mozote and adjacent communities.
In 2012, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights blamed the Salvadoran government for the massacre and ordered reparations.
Four years later, the country’s Supreme Court ruled that a blanket amnesty for war crimes during the conflict was unconstitutional, and charges were brought against soldiers accused of involvement.
Central America
Panama confirms drug contamination of El Salvador coffee shipment occurred on its territory
A container originating from El Salvador and carrying coffee for export was contaminated with more than 1,152 packages of drugs while in transit through Panama, according to official information confirmed by the Panamanian government this Tuesday.
The case, which had previously generated political controversy in April 2025 after opposition sectors attempted to link the Salvadoran government to drug trafficking, has now been clarified through renewed investigations.
Authorities confirmed that the container departed from the port of Acajutla after being properly inspected, with no illicit substances detected at the time of export.
According to statements previously provided by El Salvador’s Minister of Defense, René Merino Monroy, the shipment traveled first to the port of Balboa in Panama, where it remained stored for several days before being transferred to another vessel bound for Manzanillo in Colón.
It was at that terminal that Panamanian authorities discovered the drugs and identified tampering with the container seals, indicating that the illicit alteration occurred during its transit in Panama rather than in Salvadoran territory.
The findings align with earlier explanations provided by Salvadoran officials and confirm that the contamination of the cargo took place outside of El Salvador’s jurisdiction.
Central America
Uber Eats adds Puntarenas and Turrialba to growing Costa Rica network
Uber Eats announced that it is continuing to expand its presence in Costa Rica with the launch of operations in the cities of Puntarenas and Turrialba, further strengthening the company’s growth in the country.
With this expansion, the delivery platform is now available across all seven Costa Rican provinces and works with more than 6,000 partner businesses. Its offerings include prepared food, supermarkets, pharmacies, pet stores, and other specialty retailers.
As part of the announcement, Uber Eats also introduced Marco Nannipieri as its new Regional General Manager for the Andean Region, Central America, and the Caribbean.
Nannipieri will oversee the company’s operations in Costa Rica along with seven other countries in the region.
“Costa Rica is a key market for Uber Eats in the region, with growing adoption of technology among users and businesses. Over the past five years, more than 1,000 restaurants and merchants have joined the app, and today we are entering a new stage of expansion that will allow us to reach more cities outside the Greater Metropolitan Area, creating new opportunities for entrepreneurs across the country,” Nannipieri said.
Central America
Report questions direction of Nasry Asfura after 100 days in office
The Center for the Study of Democracy warned Tuesday that the government of Nasry Asfura, which marks its first 100 days in office on Wednesday, has failed to show a “significant change in direction” and continues to follow a model characterized by exclusion, inequality, and external dependence.
In its report titled “100 Days of the Nasry Asfura Government: Concerns and Demands,” Cespad stated that the administration has maintained an economic and political model that prioritizes debt payments, the promotion of extractive projects, and the strengthening of the security apparatus over social investment.
The organization argued that the current policies have not addressed structural problems affecting large sectors of the Honduran population and warned that inequality and economic dependence remain key challenges for the country.
Nasry Asfura won the general elections held on November 30, 2025, in a process marked by allegations of fraud and delays in the vote count that lasted nearly a month due to a series of technological failures.
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