Human rights activists working with the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation (FAFG) have received anonymous death threats in attempts to intimidate them to discontinue their work. FAFG works closely with the Maya Achi Association for the Integral Development of Victims of Violence (ADIVMA), which works to "bring justice to the victims of those massacred during the long civil war."
The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee reported that the executive director of the FAFG, Fredy Peccerelli, received various death threats directed at him and his family members on August 26 and September 8, stating that "people working at FAFG will be punished for their work."
The forensic teams of the FAFG have assisted Mayan communities throughout Guatemala in digging up mass graves from the military’s counterinsurgency campaign in the early 1980s. The FAFG and ADIVIMA focus on exhumations of massacre sites, reburials for victims, and the collection of evidence that can be used in legal cases against those who are responsible for the massacres.
