backs, but identification of these victims was made difficult because dogs and other animals had partially devoured many of the charred corpses. At around 15:00 on that Monday, two military commissioners and a squad of PAC patrolmen arrived in Plan de Sánchez and ordered the survivors to dig graves and bury the victims' remains, threatening them that the air force would bombard the village if they failed to comply. More than 20 clandestine communal graves were dug and filled. Meanwhile, the patrolmen ransacked the houses that had not been burned down, stealing personal property and livestock and destroying identification papers. Witness testimony Aftermath Over the ensuing months, because of regular visits by the army during which they were threatened, harassed, and intimidated, most of the survivors abandoned the village for the mountains, other towns and villages, or Guatemala City. In 1985, they began to trickle back and were allowed to resettle in Plan de Sánchez and work their land, provided that they served in the PACs and remained subject at all times to military oversight. By 1987, some 20 families were again living in the village, albeit under strict orders from the military not to discuss the massacre. The harassment and threats from the military and paramilitaries continued, and the requirement that they patrol with the PACs was enforced until the peace accords were signed and the civilian self-defence patrols were dissolved in 1996. Witness testimony The militarisation of Plan de Sánchez prevented them from continuing their ancestral traditions. Before the massacre, they performed individual and private ceremonies, called "devotions". Several of the older men were responsible for officiating these acts, but many of them died in the massacre and their knowledge could not be transmitted to the new generations… Owing to the repression exercised by the Army and the obligation for the young men to do military service, the latter lost their faith, their devotion for the traditions and knowledge of their ancestors, and did not want to continue the traditions… They performed a few Mayan ceremonies very infrequently because the military agents did not allow these rites, alleging that they were practicing witchcraft against their enemies." – Benjamín Manuel Jerónimo, Inter-American Court's reparations judgement. The witness was obliged to enlist in the Army for 30 months. On 31 October 1987, he left the military barracks to return to Plan de Sánchez… [and] was obliged to join the patrol