Salvadoran who fled war 32 years ago found in jungle

Associated Press

SAN JOSE LAS FLORES, El Salvador – There had long been rumors of a strange figure haunting the swampy jungles where Rene Sonabo hunted. So he and friends decided to investigate.

What they found was a gaunt, pallid figure in ragged clothes who claimed he had spent 32 years hiding from soldiers after fleeing a war that lasted barely 100 hours.

Now, 72-year-old Salomon Vides is home, apparently adjusting to civilization: how to wear shoes, how to open a flip-top soda pop can.

Vides claims he was a migrant worker on farms near Honduras’ northern coast when El Salvador, his own country, invaded Honduras in 1969. The war lasted about 100 hours before the Organization of American States intervened to halt it.

But Vides says he never got word of the settlement.

He says he fled from the farm to escape Honduran paramilitary units that were taking vengeance on Salvadorans and crossed into neighboring Guatemala.

“I thought they were chasing me. I was afraid,” he said in soft, halting speech.

Vides said Guatemalan soldiers arrested him as he crossed the border and then took him to a barracks at Puerto Barrios on the Caribbean coast. He says he soon slipped away.

“I escaped as I could. I swam in the sea and left into the jungle, walking and walking until I fell,” he recalled. “When I awoke, I heard shots. I thought the war was continuing, and I kept running.”

Vides said he survived on wild greens, roots, fruit, small turtles and fish he caught on deserted beaches.

It has been impossible for journalists to verify all of Vides’ account. However, he apparently was missing for all those years, and local residents had heard rumors of his presence in the jungle.

Finally, in mid-August, Sonabo, his son and a friend came upon Vides while the hermit was eating. He raised his hands in surrender. “He thought we were militiamen who had come to capture him. He said, ‘If you are going to kill me, kill me,’ ” Sonabo said.

“There was nothing I could do but give up,” Vides said. “But they convinced me that nobody was chasing me. That made me happy.”