El Salvador’s President Mauricio Funes apologized Monday for the 1981 El Mozote massacre, when U.S.-trained Salvadoran forces killed nearly 1,000 civilians. Funes described it as “the worst massacre of civilians in contemporary Latin American history.”

President Mauricio Funes: “As the president of the republic and the commander of the armed forces, I ask forgiveness from the victims and the neighboring communities. Hundreds of Salvadorans, both men and women, form part of a long list of disappeared people while others emigrated and lost everything in order to save their own lives.”