Disappearance is “a wound that never heals”

In the pantheon of stories of disappearances, the story of Izabel Lopez Raymundo is that of a collateral victim.

It was June 13, 1982, when the military regime of Efrain Rios Mont surrounded the village of Nebaj, where she lived in Guatemala. The military enforced a scorched earth policy and destroyed everything they saw. They set houses on fire, shot a man who was protesting the fires in front of his house; the son stood in front of his family to protect them and was also shot. The mother was taken to the back of the house with a baby on her back and was shot at close range. The bullet killed the mother, but lodged in the baby's body. A soldier took the baby, under the guise of saving him, and placed him in an orphanage. The baby was then adopted and transferred to Belgium, where he grew up.

The baby, now an adult, is called Lopez. She has a scar on her chest where the bullet entered, "as if to say never forget", Ms Lopez said. It was this scar that allowed his family who stayed behind to identify him.

Ms. Lopez told her story during the recent session of the Committee on Enforced Disappearances (CED). The Committee regularly hears or reads testimonies from families and other survivors of enforced disappearances.

“I testify today in tribute to my family, who were massacred in cold blood, and also in tribute to the victims of war who were made to disappear,” said Ms. Lopez. “These families who have to rebuild themselves and live with the physical and psychological pain caused by the massacres but also the disappearance of their loved ones. I testify in the hope that things will change and that this will not happen again. »

When a child is abducted, he is deprived of his family memory: there is no trace left of his name, of the identity of his parents, of the circumstances of his disappearance, of his family memory, said Juan José López Ortega, committee member. Stories like Ms. Lopez's help to remember that children too can be victims of enforced disappearances.

« Ce récit émouvant nous permet d'attirer l'attention sur l'importance, pour la Convention et pour ce Comité, que les États prennent toutes les mesures nécessaires pour empêcher l'enlèvement d'enfants. » a déclaré Juan José López Ortega membre du comité. « Lorsqu'un enfant subit de tels actes, toutes les informations essentielles à son identification sont cachées et disparaissent. La mémoire familiale est un bien essentiel, auquel nous avons tous droit et dont personne ne devrait être privé. »

For Lopez, the process of finding her biological family began in 2008, when she received a letter from Guatemalan association La Liga Guatemalteca de Higine Mental. This association is looking for the children of people who disappeared during the years of armed conflict. Ms. Lopez matched the reports filed by her biological family. However, the death of her adoptive mother in 2009 temporarily halted the process.

“When Alexy, my first child, was born in 2017, I felt a sense of guilt,” Ms Lopez said. I decided to reconnect with my biological family. My children are more like me than their father, so they are little Mayans who have the right to know where they come from. »

Ms Lopez contacted La Liga and managed to find her sisters. They got in touch first by phone, then by video call. It was Petrona, her sister, who initiated the search and recognized Ms Lopez during their first videoconference. The two sisters were nearly identical, Ms. Lopez said. Her older sister Ana saw her later and cried with joy. After 40 years of searching, they found their little sister.

In 2019, Mrs. Lopez's daughter Alicia was born. Some time later, her biological sister Ana, the very one who carried her when she was between life and death as a baby in Guatemala, sent her a scarf from Guatemala. Mrs. Lopez decided to use it to carry Alicia on her back and take a picture. A simple and strong image to reconnect with her culture, but also "to represent us symbolically, mom and me", this time without bullet or scar, she says.

Mrs. Lopez explains that she lives with the physical scar caused by the bullet that took away her biological mother, as a symbol of her rebirth, of death, but also of life.

"In my destiny, my greatest wound is also my greatest strength of resilience," she said. “Great suffering can lead to great peace, but when you are declared missing, you never heal. Our families cannot grieve without knowing what has become of us. And we, as a missing person, are cut off from a part of our history, of our being. Disappearance is a wound that never heals, but we are never alone: ??we just have to smile at the right person. »

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