BRAZIL’S government on Monday apologised to families of victims of the country’s military dictatorship whose remains could be among those found in a clandestine mass grave 35 years ago.

Dozens of families are still waiting to know whether their parents, children, siblings and friends are in one of more than 1,000 blue bags discovered in 1990 in a ditch in a Sao Paulo cemetery in the isolated district of Perus. 

That was the first of many mass graves uncovered by Brazil’s authorities after the end of the 21-year military rule in 1985.