Manuel Ramirez Guardado places a candle at the foot of a cross that bears his sister s name March 4, 2021, in Los Ramirez, El Salvador. A national organization attempted to recover the remains of his sister, Catalina Ramirez, assassinated in 1979, but none were found. (CNS photo/Rhina Guidos)
Chalatenango, El Salvador The sun in March and April is unforgiving in the hills and mountains of El Salvador. The lack of rain and scorching sun puts much of the vegetation to sleep, painting a landscape of barren trees and plants, visual reminders of a Lenten season.
In this arid setting in the 1970s and 1980s, the government s armed forces, too, punished the landscape, but their target was people. In 1979, one of those targets in the hills near the village of Los Ramirez was Catalina Ramirez, a 30-year-old Catholic, active in her parish.