21

 / The long road to justice

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who was leading them. When a woman refused to walk any 
further, the soldier turned around and grabbed her hair, in a 
quick movement that barely lasted a few seconds, enough for 
the boy to run for his life and hide beneath the tree.

Several hours went by before he was able to leave his hiding 
place. When he finally came out he fell asleep in a field and 
then began to walk home. As he approached his family’s 
land, he heard heavy footsteps and knew right away that the 
soldiers had just left the house. Had his parents been killed? 
The young boy decided that if that were the case, he would 
turn himself over to the soldiers so that they would kill him, 
too. 

The boy entered the house with a lost expression on his face, 
bloodshot eyes and limbs covered in huge mosquito bites. 
His mother collapsed when he told her that Ramiro had 
been killed. Convinced that the soldiers would return to kill 
them too, they ran out of the house and fled into through 
the jungle, with nothing more than the clothes they were 
wearing on that day.

VIII

In a corner of the same church that Salomé Armando had 
escaped from, four small children were huddled together, 
crying. The eldest, Ramiro Cristales, was five years old. The 
sun had not risen yet when the soldiers had busted in the 
front door of his house, and had dragged his parents and six 
siblings out of their beds. His father and brothers had been 
tied together by the neck with ropes, as if they were animals. 
Behind them, walked Ramiro’s mother, carrying his nine-
month old sister. 

While Ramiro’s father and brothers had been led towards to