Thirty nine years ago, Salvadoran troops commenced a scorched earth operation in the remote, rural community of El Mozote and surrounding hamlets in the department of Morazan in northeast El Salvador.  Over the next few days, with savage brutality, they would slaughter almost 1000 civilians, including more than 400 children under the age of 12, in the worst single massacre in the history of Latin America.

Source: The El Mozote massacre, 39 years later