Maria Julia Hernandez | Rights activist, 68

Maria Julia Hernandez, 68, a celebrated human-rights activist who spoke up for victims during El Salvador's civil war and tended to their families in the years that followed, died of a heart attack Friday in San Salvador.

As director of Tutela Legal, a human-rights group sponsored by the Roman Catholic Church, Miss Hernandez had traveled the country gathering evidence and interviewing survivors of alleged massacres during the bloody conflict that ended with a U.N.-brokered accord in 1992. "Our deep challenge and pledge, our reason for being, are the victims, who were mostly the poor of El Salvador," she said in a 2004 speech.

Seeking to expose abuses by so-called death squads was dangerous work. Thousands of people were threatened or killed by soldiers, police and right-wing paramilitary groups battling leftist guerrillas. Critics of government security forces were labeled rebel sympathizers.

Before embarking on an investigation, she always said this prayer: " 'Well, God, I'll either see you today or you'll give me more time to keep fighting,' " recalled colleague David Morales. - Los Angeles Times