UN promotes search for Salvadoran civil war victims

SAN SALVADOR, Feb 6 (Reuters) Envoys from the United Nations arrived in El Salvador to promote the search for thousands of victims who disappeared in El Salvador's bloody 1980-1992 civil war.

Members of the UN's working group that specialises in looking at forced disappearances landed in the tiny Central American nation for a three-day visit and talks with the government and human rights groups yesterday.

The UN group estimates about 8,000 people disappeared during the 12-year war between the government and Marxist guerrillas. The official government version is that 2,270 people disappeared. Overall, the war claimed 75,000 lives.

Foreign Minister Francisco Lainez told reporters after meeting the UN envoys that they talked about ''the progress achieved on the human rights front'' by El Salvador since the war ended with peace agreements in 1992.

One local group that supports the families of victims of human rights abuses presented a report to the UN delegation that details the thousands of disappearances and also what they say are government ''obstacles'' blocking any search for bodies.

''In spite of the steps we have taken, we have not received state support, nor information, to establish the whereabouts of thousands of people who were captured and then disappeared,'' the Codefam group said in its report, also sent to the media.

The UN envoys plan to meet with other government ministers and members of the supreme court and the legislative assembly. They intend to file a report on their findings.

Reuters SRS VP0720