It’s hard to imagine, from our comfortable lives, what Rufina Amaya witnessed, what she experienced during the witnessing; it’s hard to imagine even one day of her life afterwards, one moment of her memories.
Rufina Amaya, who in 1981 saw Salvadoran troops slaughter her family and many others in her village, then, as the only witness, dedicated her life to telling about it, died Tuesday in San Miguel, El Salvador. She was 64.
Mrs. Amaya escaped government soldiers on the morning of Dec. 11, 1981, as they killed all the men, women and children in her village, El Mozote. There and in the surrounding area, the Catholic Office of Human Rights in El Salvador said, 809 victims have now been identified, many found in mass graves.
After Rufina Amaya returned to El Salvador from a Honduran refugee camp in 1990, moving to a nearby village, she worked as a lay pastor for the local Roman Catholic church and led what she called “reflection groups.” She received a ceaseless stream of visitors from around the world.
Again and again, she told of seeing her husband being beheaded and hearing her daughter’s mortal scream, after she miraculously found a hiding place.
And yet, she went out, for years and tried to bring a portion of her knowing into that of others.