Answer:
In 1978, during the Guatemalan civil war, the government was seeking to improve its economic standing by allowing the building of a hydroelectric dam, known as the Chixoy Dam, in the lands that belonged to the Maya Achi tribes, in Baja Verapaz. Because a lot of the natives refused to be moved, or accept any payment for their ancestral lands, the government initiated forceful relocations, and many of the Maya Achi ended up disappearing, between 1980 and 1982. It was later discovered that many of these people had been taken into the Cobán military base, in Alta Verapaz. Men, women and children were taken, abused and killed indiscriminately by what the Guatemalan government later called, counterinsurgency movements. It was not until 2012 that the Guatemalan Forensic Anthropology Foundation, and other agencies, discovered the massive gravesite inside the old military base and exhumed the bodies. The DNA samples that were taken from the bodies found at the site, were compared with the DNA database that the Guatemalan government had, and they found matches to several people what had been reported missing, and who had a relationship to the Maya Achi. This is how DNA played a key role in uncovering the terrible massacre that took place between 1980 and 1982.
