Woman Rediscovers Family In El Salvador

June 13 (KGO) -- A young woman has rediscovered her family in El Salvador, thanks to an exhaustive DNA search at UC Berkeley.

Fifteen years after a peace accord ended a bloody civil war in El Salvador, parents are still looking for their lost children. A unique program in El Salvador is answering questions for families divided by the fog of war.

The program is called the DNA Reunification Program and is headquartered at UC berle. It uses DNA to match war orpahans with their birth parents in El Salvadar

Children were often separated from their families as they fled rural villages during the Civil War from the 1980's to the early 1990's.

Eric Stover, UC Human Rights Center: "Army soldiers would go into villages and actually execute family members and take the children."

Many were placed in orphanages.

Some, like Angela Fillingim, were just babies. She was first placed with a Salvadoran foster family until she was six months old.

Angela was then adopted by an American couple in Berkeley where she was raised. Angela is now 21. Last summer, she visited El Salvador for the first time. She went to the village where she was born. That's where she met workers from Pro-Busqueda, a group which searches for missing children.

They took her DNA sample and other information. Shortly after Angela returned home, she got the news and a picture. They had located her birth mother and her 16-year-old brother.

Angela Fillingim, war orphan: "I know that she's a seamstress. I know that in the adoption papers that came out, she felt it was not a safe time in El Salvador to have a child."

Eric Stover, director of UC Berkeley's Human Rights Center, launched the DNA Reunification Project.

Angela's is only one of their many successes.

Workers from Pro-Busqueda locate Salvadoran families looking for their children.

They collect the DNA which is processed at the state laboratory in Richmond.

When the missing children, now adults, are located, their DNA is matched with the birth parents.

Eric Stover, UC Human Rights Center: "The aim of the families who are looking for their children now is not to take them away from their adoptive families but simply to have some form of contact with their history."

Angela says she is excited to meet her birth mom, but also a bit overwhelmed.

Angela Fillingim, war orphan: "This is a way to make my family grow but at the same time, there's a lot of differences that can come out."

Angela will meet her birth mother next Spring in El Salvador.

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