Colombia’s Prosecutor General’s Office so far has exhumed the
remains of 2,164 people from paramilitary or guerrilla mass graves.
According to Caracol Radio, in its latest report on the exhumations, the Prosecutor General has found 1,761 graves with victims of one of the country’s illegal armed groups.
The majority of the graves was found, because of testimonies made by demobilized paramilitaries, who confessed their crimes in exchange for milder sentences.
590 of the exhumed remains were identified and of another 572 the identity is almost certain. 552 bodies were returned to their families to be given a proper burial.
Most of the graves were found in the departments Antioquia, Magdalena and Cordoba.
The Prosecutor General started with the exhumation of graves in 2005, while paramilitary organization AUC and the government of President Alvaro Uribe started talking about the demobilization of the paramilitary forces.