In Colombia, a painstaking effort at closure

"When Maira Martinez graduated from college in Bogota, she had dreams of being a female Indiana Jones, excavating ancient burial sites and unlocking secrets to Colombia's rich pre-Hispanic past," writes the L.A. Times' Chris Kraul.

"These days, she's sifting through a much more recent, and grisly, past. The 27-year-old forensic anthropologist is a member of one of 12 exhumation teams working to recover and, they hope, identify the remains of thousands of victims of Colombia's civil war."

"Less glamorous than she had imagined, Martinez's role is nonetheless important in Colombia's nascent peace process, in which families are slowly coming forward to seek the truth, and some sort of closure."

"Since April 2006, the investigative teams have exhumed 1,536 bodies, of which 172 have been identified, according to the federal attorney general's office. With an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 victims of right-wing paramilitaries and left-wing rebels missing, she is unlikely to run out of work."

Read on here about Colombia's continuing search for victims of the civil war.

For more stories on Colombia, click here.

-- Deborah Bonello in Mexico City

Photo: Forensic anthropologist Maira Martinez works in a shallow grave near Santa Marta, Colombia. Martinez is a member of a dozen exhumation teams that have fanned out across Colombia to dig up remains of thousands of victims of a decades-long conflict. Credit: Chris Kraul / Los Angeles Times