PANAMA City (AFP) – Panama has observed a day of national mourning for the first time ever to mark the anniversary of the U.S. invasion in 1989.
“We pray for the fallen, looking upward and moving forward together,” President Laurentino Cortizo said at a ceremony attended by some 300 relatives of victims, government officials, diplomats, soldiers and activists.
The national flag few at half-mast between rows of marble plaques in the Peace Garden Cemetery in Panama City that holds the remains of dozens who died on December 20, 1989 when 27,000 U.S. soldiers invaded the country with the backing of fighter planes, tanks and heavy artillery.
Officially, 500 people died but rights groups claim the true number was in the thousands.
Among the dead buried in the Peace Garden are children such as Tomas Palacios, who was just 10 when he died.
At least 200 of the fallen were civilians.
“Time has not finished healing this wound,” said Trinidad Ayola, a representative of families who lost loved ones.