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The Documentary: El Salvador's missing children: Part two

El Salvador's Missing Children 2/2

18/04/2024 GMT

El Salvador's missing children: Part two

BBC World Service - The Documentary, El Salvador's missing children: Part two

Can Salvadoran children adopted during the country’s civil war find their birth families?

Mike Lanchin, former BBC correspondent in Central America, continues to unfold the dramatic stories of children who were separated from their families and adopted abroad during El Salvador’s brutal civil war which ended in 1992. Some were seized by soldiers during military operations against left-wing rebels, and later found living with new families in Europe and North America. Others were given up in adoption by mothers forced into poverty or displaced by the conflict. Now, more than three decades on, some of those adopted are trying to piece together their lives and find their birth relatives.

In the second and final part of the series, Mike Lanchin speaks to Flor who’s long struggled to understand why her birth mother gave her up to an American couple in the first years of the civil war. Is the scar from a bullet wound that Flor still carries on her stomach anything to do with her adoption? 

As Flor edges close to finding some answers, Mike hears again from Jazmin in France, whom he met in episode one, and who is now finding her search for a Salvadoran family member increasingly distressing. Mike tracks down the Salvadoran lawyer involved in her adoption back in the early 1980s. Can he provide the missing pieces of the jigsaw for Jazmin?

Producers: Mike Lanchin and Philippa Goodrich 
Editor: Kristine Pommert
A CTVC production for BBC World Service

(Photo: Flor and family. Credit: CTVC)

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