1980-1992 civil war that claimed some 75,000 lives.

After living in the jungle and caves with her sister while fleeing the U.S.-backed counterinsurgency forces, Reyes finally sought refuge in neighbouring Honduras.

"But in 1980 we had to return to El Salvador because the Honduran military were conducting a campaign of repression against civil society that was just like what the military in El Salvador were doing," Reyes told IPS at her home in Ciudad Romero. "Back in El Salvador, however, the military here was still doing the same thing."

Reyes described a brutal campaign that included the burning down of homes, arrests, and repression of Catholic priests who were defending human rights.

The village where she now lives was named in honour of one of them, Archbishop Óscar Arnulfo Romero, who wasassassinated by a sniper in 1980 while celebrating mass.

"When I came back home there was nothing left, not even a dog," Reyes continued. "We became guerillas because of the massacres we were witnessing."

By then, various leftwing groups had joined together in the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN). She and her sister worked at a radio station run by the guerrillas, while working to assist and comfort women who had lost their husbands and children in the war.

This led to her work in women's organisations in the capital city of San Salvador, before she moved to the Lower Lempa River region in Usulután, where Ciudad Romero and other communities were built by former insurgents and refugees who returned to the country after the war.

"We helped start food programmes,