Flor Wolman bears a small scar reminiscent of a second belly button on her left side, a remnant from a gunshot wound she endured as a child. This scar serves as a poignant link to her tumultuous past and prompts relentless questions about her separation from her biological family.
Born as Flor de Luz Acosta in 1979 in San Francisco Lempa, amidst the turbulent onset of El Salvador’s civil strife, Flor’s early years are a patchwork of fragmented memories, perhaps shrouded by trauma. Among them, a chilling recollection of seeking refuge in a makeshift shack as a young child, only to encounter the barrel of a soldier’s rifle, an encounter that left her wounded and unconscious.
The grim reality of her situation becomes clearer through the lens of organizations like Pro-Busqueda, dedicated to locating children who vanished during the Salvadoran Civil War. Their investigations reveal a grim pattern: infants and toddlers seized by military forces during anti-guerrilla operations, often later handed over for adoption under the guise of parental consent—parents who, in truth, met tragic ends at the hands of the very forces claiming to protect them.
Margarita Zamora, a prominent figure in Pro-Busqueda, sheds light on the deliberate targeting of children by the military, a tactic aimed at instilling fear within communities already ravaged by conflict. For Flor and countless others like her, the quest for answers intertwines with the painful legacy of war, driving a relentless search for closure and reunion with their lost families.