Academic literature on the topic 'Refugees, el salvador'

AbstractDuring the 1980s, more than 20,000 Salvadorans fleeing the violence of the Salvadoran Civil War entered the neighboring country of Nicaragua. Their flight was part of a larger multidirectional migration out of El Salvador in which Salvadorans sought refuge across Central and North America. In response to this unprecedented influx of Salvadoran refugee men, women, and children, the Nicaraguan government—newly under the control of the revolutionary Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN)—declared that all refugees would be permitted “the opportunity to survive and produce.” This article argues that the timing of the refugees’ arrival proved mutually beneficial for both the Salvadorans and the FSLN by illustrating how Sandinista officials sought to further agrarian reform projects via refugee integration into agricultural cooperatives. As such, Nicaraguan refugee policy functioned as an integral part of Sandinista statecraft. Through an analysis of refugee-produced sources, government and UNHCR documents, and news reports, this article sheds new light on the entwined histories of Salvadoran refugees and the Sandinista state in the transnational context of the late Cold War period in Central America.

During the 1980s, El Salvador was engaged in a brutal civil war; massacres, torture, and rape pervaded the countryside. This social and economic upheaval created approximately 1.5 million refugees and internally displaced persons throughout Central and North America. Gender is a critical yet understudied aspect of this mass displacement. I analyze humanitarian publications and government documents to examine the discursive gendering of Salvadoran refugees on the international stage. I argue that U.S. activists portrayed Salvadorans as feminized civilian victims in need of rescue by the paternalistic United States to change public opinion of the Salvadoran Civil War and its refugees. These gendered and infantilized constructions belie the reality that the vast majority of Salvadoran refugees to the United States were men of military age. I examine the Salvadoran refugee from a new perspective that foregrounds gender as a category of analysis.

This study compared the MMPI scores of Central American refugees from Guatemala and El Salvador to those of Mexican immigrants. It was expected that subjects from Guatemala and El Salvador would obtain higher scores on the F, D, Pa, and Sc scales because these subjects came from “war-torn” countries. A multivariate analysis of variance yielded no significant differences between the three groups on any of the validity and clinical scales including F, D, Pa, and Sc. Recommendations for cross-national research ace noted especially in light of the new version, or MMPI-2.

Washington, D.C., like many major cities in the U.S., has experienced a large influx of illegal immigrants in the past decade. Hundreds of thousands of Hispanics have entered the United States, many of them fleeing from the political violence in Guatemala and El Salvador. The Washington metropolitan area may have as many as 80,000 refugees from El Salvador alone.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reports that the number of requests for international refugee or asylum protection increased fivefold from 2010 to 2015. In the United States these requests are mainly filed by citizens from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras—the countries collectively referred to as the Northern Triangle of Central America (TNCA). These applicants flee their countries of origin to escape threats to their lives and personal safety from gang violence, organized crime, and even police and military agents. Though the violence cannot be classified as a “war,” the daily life of many Central Americans is currently marked by human tragedies comparable to those experienced during the regional armed conflicts of past decades.

As decades of political repression had by 1980 culminated in a full-scale civil war in El Salvador, thousands of its victims fled the country in search of haven. Costa Rica was viewed as one of the most politically stable and non-repressive countries of Central America and therefore many Salvadoreans asked this country for asylum. At the end of 1980, there were more than 2,000 refugees in Costa Rica and by March 1981, the figure had risen to over four thousand. Between 1980 and 1983 an average of 9,000 refugees per year arrived in Costa Rica.

The Salvadoran civil war destroyed local community life throughout the province of Morazán. Despite the peace accords, poverty, unequal land distribution, and a “culture of violence” demand structural and institutional transformations well beyond the individual moral regeneration offered by churches. Religion, however, supplies coping tools, especially for youth, women, and repatriated refugees. By focusing on local issues, furthermore, churches are fostering social participation among hitherto disenfranchised groups, a critical element in building an inclusive, robust democracy.

Executive Summary2 In the early summer months of 2014, an increasing number of Central American children alone and with their parents began arriving at the US-Mexico border in search of safety and protection. The children and families by and large came from the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala — three of the most dangerous countries in the world — to seek asylum and other humanitarian relief. Rampant violence and persecution within homes and communities, uncontrolled and unchecked by state authorities, compelled them to flee north for their lives. On the scale of refugee crises worldwide, the numbers were not huge. For example, 24,481 and 38,833 unaccompanied children, respectively, were apprehended by US Border Patrol (USBP) in FY 2012 and FY 2013, while 68,631 children were apprehended in FY 2014 alone (USBP 2016a). In addition, apprehensions of “family units,” or parents (primarily mothers) with children, also increased, from 15,056 families in FY 2013 to 68,684 in FY 2014 (USBP 2016b).3 While these numbers may seem large and did represent a significant increase over prior years, they are nonetheless dwarfed by refugee inflows elsewhere; for example, Turkey was host to 1.15 million Syrian refugees by year end 2014 (UNHCR 2015a), and to 2.5 million by year end 2015 (UNHCR 2016) — reflecting an influx of almost 1.5 million refugees in the course of a single year. Nevertheless, small though they are in comparison, the numbers of Central American women and children seeking asylum at our southern border, concentrated in the summer months of 2014, did reflect a jump from prior years. These increases drew heightened media attention, and both news outlets and official US government statements termed the flow a “surge” and a “crisis” (e.g., Basu 2014; Foley 2014; Negroponte 2014). The sense of crisis was heightened by the lack of preparedness by the federal government, in particular, to process and provide proper custody arrangements for unaccompanied children as required by federal law. Images of children crowded shoulder to shoulder in US Customs and Border Protection holding cells generated a sense of urgency across the political spectrum (e.g., Fraser-Chanpong 2014; Tobias 2014). Responses to this “surge,” and explanations for it, varied widely in policy, media, and government circles. Two competing narratives emerged, rooted in two very disparate views of the “crisis.” One argues that “push” factors in the home countries of El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala drove children and families to flee as bona fide asylum seekers; the other asserted that “pull” factors drew these individuals to the United States. For those adopting the “push” factor outlook, the crisis is a humanitarian one, reflecting human rights violations and deprivations in the region, and the protection needs of refugees (UNHCR 2015b; UNHCR 2014; Musalo et al. 2015). While acknowledging that reasons for migration may be mixed, this view recognizes the seriousness of regional refugee protection needs. For those focusing on “pull” factors, the crisis has its roots in border enforcement policies that were perceived as lax by potential migrants, and that thereby acted as an inducement to migration (Harding 2014; Navarette, Jr. 2014). Each narrative, in turn, suggests a very different response to the influx of women and children at US borders. If “push” factors predominately drive migration, then protective policies in accordance with international and domestic legal obligations toward refugees must predominately inform US reaction. Even apart from the legal and moral rightness of this approach, any long-term goal of lowering the number of Central American migrants at the US-Mexico border, practically speaking, would have to address the root causes of violence in their home countries. On the other hand, if “pull” factors are granted greater causal weight, it would seem that stringent enforcement policies that make coming to the US less attractive and profitable would be a more effective deterrent. In that latter case, tactics imposing human costs on migrants, such as detention, speedy return, or other harsh or cursory treatment — while perhaps not morally justified —would at least make logical sense. Immediately upon the summer influx of 2014, the Obama administration unequivocally adopted the “pull” factor narrative and enacted a spate of hostile deterrence-based policies as a result. In July 2014, President Obama asked Congress to appropriate $3.7 billion in emergency funds to address the influx of Central American women and children crossing the border (Cohen 2014). The majority of funding focused on heightened enforcement at the border — including funding for 6,300 new beds to detain families (LIRS and WRC 2014, 5). The budget also included, in yet another demonstration of a “pull”-factor-based deterrence approach, money for State Department officials to counter the supposed “misinformation” spreading in Central America regarding the possibility of obtaining legal status in the United States. The US government also funded and encouraged the governments of Mexico, Guatemala, and Honduras to turn around Central American asylum seekers before they ever could reach US border (Frelick, Kysel, and Podkul 2016). Each of these policies, among other harsh practices, continues to the present day. But, by and large they have not had a deterrent effect. Although the numbers of unaccompanied children and mothers with children dropped in early 2015, the numbers began climbing again in late 2015 and remained high through 2016, exceeding in August and September 2015 the unaccompanied child and “family unit” apprehension figures for those same months in 2014 (USBP 2016a; USBP 2016b). Moreover, that temporary drop in early 2015 likely reflects US interdiction policies rather than any “deterrent” effect of harsh policies at or within US own borders, as the drop in numbers of Central American women and children arriving at the US border in the early months of 2015 corresponded largely with a spike in deportations by Mexico (WOLA 2015). In all events, in 2015, UNCHR found that the number of individuals from the Northern Triangle requesting asylum in Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Panama had increased 13-fold since 2008 (UNCHR 2015b). Thus, the Obama administration's harsh policies did not, in fact, deter Central American women and children from attempting to flee their countries. This, we argue, is because the “push” factor narrative is the correct one. The crisis we face is accordingly humanitarian in nature and regional in scope — and the migrant “surge” is undoubtedly a refugee flow. By refusing to acknowledge and address the reality of the violence and persecution in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, the US government has failed to lessen the refugee crisis in its own region. Nor do its actions comport with its domestic and international legal obligations towards refugees. This article proceeds in four parts. In the first section, we examine and critique the administration's “pull”-factor-based policies during and after the 2014 summer surge, in particular through the expansion of family detention, accelerated procedures, raids, and interdiction. In section two, we look to the true “push” factors behind the migration surge — namely, societal violence, violence in the home, and poverty and exclusion in El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala. Our analysis here includes an overview of the United States' responsibility for creating present conditions in these countries via decades of misguided foreign policy interventions. Our penultimate section explores the ways in which our current deterrence-based policies echo missteps of our past, particularly through constructive refoulement and the denial of protection to legitimate refugees. Finally, we conclude by offering recommendations to the US government for a more effective approach to the influx of Central American women and children at our border, one that addresses the real reasons for their flight and that furthers a sustainable solution consistent with US and international legal obligations and moral principles. Our overarching recommendation is that the US government immediately recognize the humanitarian crisis occurring in the Northern Triangle countries and the legitimate need of individuals from these countries for refugee protection. Flowing from that core recommendation are additional suggested measures, including the immediate cessation of hostile, deterrence-based policies such as raids, family detention, and interdiction; adherence to proper interpretations of asylum and refugee law; increased funding for long-term solutions to violence and poverty in these countries, and curtailment of funding for enforcement; and temporary measures to ensure that no refugees are returned to persecution in these countries.

The regional migration system that includes the U.S., Mexico and the Central American countries is currently in a turbulence. Mexico has become a territory where migrant caravans move, where refugees waiting for a decision on the U.S. asylum are concentrated. The Mexican-American border has become a line attracting hundreds of thousands of migrants hoping for good luck. The constant change of the U.S. migration policy principles increases an uncertainty and chaos level at the border. The role of Mexico in the regional migration system has changed radically in the second decade of the XXI century. Now it acts not only as a labor donor, but also as a key migration transit country and the first safe country to provide asylum and international protection. The transformation that took place affected the change in the status of Mexico in relations with the states of the region. The article examines the key changes in the Mexico migration model - the growth of the immigrants and refugees number, the transit migration management, the initiatives aimed at forming socio-economic development tools in the Northern Triangle countries – Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador.

El Salvador, the smallest and the most densely populated state in the region of Central America, was gripped by a civil war in the 1980s that resulted in the exodus of more than a million people. This thesis explores the causes that led to the exodus. The thesis is divided into two parts. The first part contains a historical and theoretical analysis of El Salvador from the time of conquest until the 1980s. An examination of the historical background of the socio-economic and political conflict in El Salvador during this period sets the scene for an account of the mass exodus of Salvadorans in the 1980s. The second part of the thesis involves a qualitative study of Salvadoran refugees, which concentrates on their experiences before and after arriving in Australia. The study explores both the reasons for the Salvadorans' becoming refugees and their resettlement in Melbourne. In an effort to explain some of the reasons for the socio-economic and political conflict in El Salvador in the 1980s, some concepts and ideas from different theoretical perspectives are utilized: modernisation theory, world-systems theory, dependency theory, elite theory, Foco theory of revolution and economic rationalism. The historical account covers the period from the expansion of the European world economy in the 16th century up to the political conflict of the 1980s. When the Salvadorans began to arrive in Melbourne, the micro-economic agenda in Australia was based on economic rationalism. This shifted the focus away from the state and onto a market-based approach that emphasised vigorous competition and fore grounded a non-collective social framework. The changes to policies in the welfare and immigration areas resulting from this shift are examined for their impact on the resettlement experiences of Salvadoran refugees. The United States foreign policy is also delineated because of the impact it had on the political, economic and social situation in El Salvador.;The thesis focused on the time-period from the 1823 Monroe Doctrine to the era of the Cold War of 'containment of communism'. The Catholic Church has also played a major influence in the political, social and religious life of Salvadorans. The changes that occurred in the post-1965 renewal of the Catholic Church were influential in the political struggles in El Salvador. The second part of the thesis involves a qualitative research study of a small group of 14 Salvadoran refugees. Participants were selected from different professional, educational and socioeconomic backgrounds. The study examines their flight from El Salvador, their arrival in Australia and their long-term experiences of resettlement. Tracking the experiences of refugees over a considerable period of time has seldom been the focus of a research study in Australia. The Salvadorans have been under-researched and no longitudinal studies have been conducted. The Salvadorans who took part in the study became refugees for diverse reasons ranging from political/religious reasons to random repression but certainly not for economic reasons. Their past experiences have influenced their resettlement in Australia and their attempts to build their lives anew have been fraught with difficulties. The difficulties in acquiring a working knowledge of the English language have often led to a downgrading in their professional and employment qualifications, isolation from the mainstream community and the experience of loneliness for the older generation. In addition, many of the participants still experience fear both in Australia and in their home country when they return for a visit. The findings indicate that the provision of extra services, such as counselling, could facilitate their resettlement and integration into Australian society.

El Salvador, the smallest and the most densely populated state in the region of Central America, was gripped by a civil war in the 1980s that resulted in the exodus of more than a million people. This thesis explores the causes that led to the exodus. The thesis is divided into two parts. The first part contains a historical and theoretical analysis of El Salvador from the time of conquest until the 1980s. An examination of the historical background of the socio-economic and political conflict in El Salvador during this period sets the scene for an account of the mass exodus of Salvadorans in the 1980s. The second part of the thesis involves a qualitative study of Salvadoran refugees, which concentrates on their experiences before and after arriving in Australia. The study explores both the reasons for the Salvadorans’ becoming refugees and their resettlement in Melbourne. In an effort to explain some of the reasons for the socio-economic and political conflict in El Salvador in the 1980s, some concepts and ideas from different theoretical perspectives are utilized: modernisation theory, world-systems theory, dependency theory, elite theory, Foco theory of revolution and economic rationalism. The historical account covers the period from the expansion of the European world economy in the 16th century up to the political conflict of the 1980s. When the Salvadorans began to arrive in Melbourne, the micro-economic agenda in Australia was based on economic rationalism. This shifted the focus away from the state and onto a market-based approach that emphasised vigorous competition and fore grounded a non-collective social framework. The changes to policies in the welfare and immigration areas resulting from this shift are examined for their impact on the resettlement experiences of Salvadoran refugees. The United States foreign policy is also delineated because of the impact it had on the political, economic and social situation in El Salvador. The thesis focused on the time-period from the 1823 Monroe Doctrine to the era of the Cold War of ‘containment of communism’. The Catholic Church has also played a major influence in the political, social and religious life of Salvadorans. The changes that occurred in the post-1965 renewal of the Catholic Church were influential in the political struggles in El Salvador. The second part of the thesis involves a qualitative research study of a small group of 14 Salvadoran refugees. Participants were selected from different professional, educational and socioeconomic backgrounds. The study examines their flight from El Salvador, their arrival in Australia and their long-term experiences of resettlement. Tracking the experiences of refugees over a considerable period of time has seldom been the focus of a research study in Australia. The Salvadorans have been under-researched and no longitudinal studies have been conducted. The Salvadorans who took part in the study became refugees for diverse reasons ranging from political/religious reasons to random repression but certainly not for economic reasons. Their past experiences have influenced their resettlement in Australia and their attempts to build their lives anew have been fraught with difficulties. The difficulties in acquiring a working knowledge of the English language have often led to a downgrading in their professional and employment qualifications, isolation from the mainstream community and the experience of loneliness for the older generation. In addition, many of the participants still experience fear both in Australia and in their home country when they return for a visit. The findings indicate that the provision of extra services, such as counselling, could facilitate their resettlement and integration into Australian society.

This thesis explores how LGBTQ*-Salvadoran applicants for international protection experience the influence of their own sexual orientation and gender identities in relation to the underlying motives behind their migration. In addition, it intends to draw some conclusions from the respondents' statements, gained insights from observations and what was found in literature. For this, two Salvadoran LGBTQ*- applicants for international protection, who applied for asylum in Belgium in the year 2019, were interviewed. Their discourses were analysed by using a thematic analysis.The study exposes the narratives and motivations which led them to flee their homeland and find a new life in Belgium.

During the civil war in El Salvador, approximately 38,000 Salvadorans came to Canada, making them the largest group of Latin American migrants to Canada in that era. The arrival of these Salvadoran refugees has received limited academic attention. My thesis examines how Salvadoran refugees to Canada were portrayed in Canadian newspapers. I specifically examine how Salvadorans were written about in the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star and Montreal’s Gazette; I focus on three eras: 1980 to 1982, 1986 to 1987, and 1991 to 1992. I argue that, throughout these years, Canadian newspapers acted as discursive gatekeepers to the “imagined community” of Canada. Salvadoran refugees moved closer to this community, but were not granted full admittance.

Thesis (PhD) -- Australian Catholic University, 2006.
Submitted in total fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Bibliography: p. 196-210. Also available in an electronic format via the internet.

This study addresses a concern for the experience of participants in Canadian Government sponsored language and job-training programs for recent immigrants, specifically El Salvadoran refugees. The research has sought to uncover, through interviews with two former students, some of their impressions and insights concerning their participation in a Canadian government sponsored language and job-training program. The interviews were structured to account for historical, cultural, political, ideological and educational events and influences in El Salvador and Canada that contributed to the formation of their subjective experience within the context of the Canadian programs in which they participated. Analysis of the interview transcripts and notes made during and after the interviews revealed several emergent themes. These were: political activity and war, teachers as leaders, religion, what is good teaching, adjustment to Canada, values and hopes, and the need for ESL and job-training programs. In the views of the two informants, the teacher-student relationship, based on awareness, communication and respect emerged as a very important feature of successful pedagogy . The findings are related and discussed in relation to Canadian society. The instructional implications are discussed with reference to relevant pedagogical approaches.

Abstract This chapter details how the Reagan administration’s increasing US military aid and interventions in ongoing civil wars in Central America caused mass displacement of Salvadoran refugees and Guatemalan refugees fleeing US-backed violence, prompting US policy responses including detention, inter-agency law enforcement cooperation, and border militarization. Through covert military operations inspired by low-intensity conflict doctrine and drug interdiction provisions under the War on Drugs, the Reagan administration adopted a Cold War political strategy of denying the role of US-trained death squads in refugee displacement to claim that leftism and communism were the only causes of violence and refugee displacement. The chapter then describes how the Reagan administration implemented the Caribbean Basin Initiative in El Salvador with an intent of refugee deterrence, and how the State Department used the 1980 Refugee Act to issue systematic denials of Salvadoran and Guatemalan asylum claims while claiming to uphold due process. These policies sparked a growing, transnational Central American peace movement. The chapter concludes by recounting the experiences of asylum-seekers detained at the El Centro detention center in California and legal and community advocacy on their behalf. Meanwhile, the Reagan administration continued developing contingency detention plans such as Rex84 in anticipation of future mass migrations.

This chapter explores the leadership role the Dominican Sisters of San Rafael played in the social movement known as “sanctuary” that emerged in the Bay Area, California, in the 1980s. The enactment of the 1980s Refugee Act and the political crisis in Central America during the Reagan administration galvanized the San Rafael Sisters to make a “corporate and public declaration” of support and sanctuary for political refugees fleeing the violence of a civil war in El Salvador. This chapter examines this pivotal moment within the larger historical context of the Dominican Sisters’ mission in California since the state’s founding in 1850.

This chapter concerns the preparation of the sanctuary movement at La Placita Church in downtown Los Angeles. In 1981, Fr. Olivares was transferred by his order to this church at the same time that thousands of Central Americans entered into the United States seeking refugee status after fleeing civil wars and repression in El Salvador and Guatemala. Fr. Olivares immediately embraced them as children of God and commenced programs at La Placita to assist them. He fed and clothed the refugees, and provided health services, legal services, and other forms of assistance. The most controversial part of this outreach was allowing some of the men to sleep overnight in the church itself. All of these activities prepared the way for Fr. Olivares to formally declare his church a public sanctuary.

This chapter rigorously examines the influence of climate change on migration dynamics from the Northern Triangle countries—Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala—towards the southern Mexican and United States borders, analyzed through a national security lens. Utilizing comprehensive analyses of principal diagnostics from the World Bank, the International Organization for Migration, and the United States’ strategic climate change response, it anticipates the continuation of climate-induced migration due to socioeconomic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and ongoing climate change. This investigation uniquely evaluates climate migration, integrating a multidisciplinary approach that includes aspects of migration, security, climate change, and development, highlighting the significant impact of climate change on regional mobility trends expected to persist. Despite these challenges, the prioritization of climate change effects in migrant-origin countries remains minimal, overshadowed by the economic benefits of emigration, particularly through international remittances. The chapter also critiques the current lack of comprehensive international or regional policies to mitigate this migration, despite the strategic efforts by the United States to address the issue from a national security perspective. It underscores the complexity of developing a cohesive policy framework that addresses climate change, migration, rights, and employment, emphasizing the necessity of promoting labor mobility in the face of economic and environmental pressures.

This chapter evaluates how the counterinsurgency campaign during the Salvadoran civil war provides support for the compellence theory. In El Salvador from 1979 to 1992, the U.S.-backed government fought the Communist and nationalist insurgency to a draw, preserving the government from an insurgent takeover. Elite accommodation took place largely among civilian and military officers in the government as hard-liners and slightly more liberal political and military entrepreneurs jockeyed for influence. The Salvadoran government resisted U.S.-pressed reforms but accepted U.S. efforts to strengthen its security forces. It used its increased fighting ability to clear civilian areas, creating vast refugee flows that reduced provision of material support to the insurgency. It also used U.S.-provided air power to break down the insurgency's conventional formations but was never able to successfully pursue and destroy the smaller bands of insurgents or gain more popular support than it began the war with. Continued insurgent political and military strength, along with the end of the Cold War, forced the United States and the hard-liners within the military to accept peace talks and a political settlement to the war rather than the military victory they had pressed for.

Abstract December 1987. We are standing in the Cathedral of San Salvador, El Salvador, tape recorders in hand. There are around two hundred people occupying the Cathedral, just dispersed with tear gas and rubber hoses from the National Ministry of Justice. Young men are taking off their shirts to allow witnesses to photograph the red welts on their backs from the beatings. Scattered among the people in the church, at the doors, in the pews, and before us, dressed in black, their heads covered by white scarves, are the women of COMADRES, the Committee of Mothers and Relatives of Political Prisoners, Dis appeared, and Assassinated of El Salvador. They are standing on the front steps of the Cathedral with banners and megaphones, telling all of San Salvador of the injustices they have witnessed. They are blocking the doors, making sure only those who bring no harm can enter. Who are you, they ask us. A North American delegation. Come on in.

El 16 de abril de 2016 un terremoto de 7,8 grados afecto gravemente la costa del Pacifico ecuatoriano dejando totalmente devastada la ciudad epicentro del sismo, Pedernales, y afectando gravemente a dos provincias del país. Este tipo de eventos catastróficos deja daños materiales y humanos cuya secuela en las poblaciones que los padecen pueden ser notables. Para Sigales(2006) “Por sus efectos devastadores, una catástrofe puede ser considerada como una situación extrema, ya que somete a las sociedades y a los individuos que la componen a un estado de urgencia”(p. 12) En el caso de terremotos, las víctimas directas pueden experimentar estrés agudo cuya causa “tiene un vínculo directo con las posibilidades de salvar o no su vida y la de los suyos (padres, hijos, hermanos), con sus heridas y sus secuelas (quemaduras, intoxicaciones, lesiones físicas, etc.), pero también con el sufrimiento que viven y la incertidumbre del futuro que está relacionado con la pérdida de sus bienes materiales, casa, trabajo, etc., así como a las posibilidades de recuperación de sus lesiones (fracturas óseas, mutilaciones físicas, lesiones que imposibiliten la vida productiva o de reproducción del individuo).”(Sigales, 2006, p. 14) Las secuelas y efectos destructivos de los padecimientos psíquicos que pueden derivarse de los desastres naturales, especialmente el estrés agudo, dependen en gran medida de la propia predisposición neurótica del individuo, sin embargo la existencia de protocolos terapéuticos de intervención pueden aminorar tales efectos en cascada. Desde la antigüedad se han probado los efectos del arte como elemento terapéutico pero especialmente a partir de la segunda guerra mundial se usa la pintura como vehículo para expresar el sufrimiento, dolor y otras emociones mediante la creación artística. Al influjo de la psicología psicoanalítica, se La arte terapia es definida por la American Art Therapy Association (AATA) como una profesión en el área de la salud mental que usa el proceso creativo para mejorar y realzar el bienestar físico, mental y emocional de individuos de todas las edades. Se basa en la creencia de que el proceso creativo ayuda a resolver conflictos y problemas, desarrolla habilidades interpersonales, manejo de la conducta, reduce el stress, aumenta la autoestima y la auto conciencia y se logra la introspección (Citado por Covarrubias, 2006, p. 2) En el terremoto Abril 2016 en Ecuador, distintas organizaciones, grupos, colectivos y también artistas a título individual acudieron a los refugios cercanos a las zonas devastadas para contribuir con medidas paliativas al estrés mediante la expresión artística. Esta ponencia relata las vivencias de los protagonistas en clave personal.http://dx.doi.org/10.4995/ANIAV.2017.5795