Sister Dianna Ortiz died on Friday at the age of 62. Sister Ortiz was a US-born Catholic nun teaching indigenous children in Guatemala’s western highlands when she was abducted, tortured, and gang-raped by a Guatemala security force in 1989.
From her obituary in the NY Times: “[Sister Ortiz] went on to become a global champion for people subjected to torture, and her case would help compel the release of classified documents showing decades of U.S. complicity in human rights abuses in Guatemala during its 36-year civil war, in which 200,000 civilians were killed.”
The details of Sister Ortiz’s story are horrifying. Her memoir, The Blindfold’s Eyes: My Journey from Torture to Truth, is haunting.
May her brave soul in peace.
New York Times article is here.
Image from Washington Post.