Families bid farewell to victims of Guatemala bus crash

SANTO DOMINGO LOS OCOTES, Guatemala (AP) — Hours before dawn, Julio Arrivillaga and Catalina Pérez Molina boarded a bus with other residents in the center of this humble village for what should have been an hour-long ride to Guatemala’s capital.

For Arrivillaga it was a daily trip to his job counting fruit in the country’s largest market. For Pérez Molina, it was her occasional dash to the capital to buy produce for the tamales and roasted corn she sold.

But along the way their bus left the road and tumbled into a deep ravine, killing them and more than 50 others.

On Tuesday, families in Santo Domingo Los Ocotes, accompanied by President Bernardo Arévalo, began saying goodbye to their loved ones amid a three-day period of national mourning.

Guatemala’s National Forensic Science Institute said Tuesday that 54 people had died in the crash. A day earlier, the Public Ministry said 53 people had died at the site of the crash and two more at a hospital and had not reconciled the numbers Tuesday.

“I still don’t understand what happened,” Arrivillaga’s wife Irma Catalán said Tuesday. “I haven’t accepted it. I don’t know what my life will be now.”

Videos circulated online of the moments before the Monday accident show the bus apparently speeding, running stoplights and colliding with multiple vehicles before leaving the roadway and plunging into the ravine where it landed upside down beneath a bridge and semi-submerged in dark sewage-polluted waters.

In Santo Domingo Los Ocotes, funerals were scheduled over two days.

Pérez Molina was among those buried Tuesday.

Christian Pérez, her 25-year-old son, said he was still in shock at the loss of his mother. He’s been confined to a wheelchair since a motorcycle accident seven years ago, and she was the one who sustained their family.

“I can’t deny it, her loss really hurts,” Pérez said.

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Pallbearers carry the coffin of a victim of a bus crash to a cemetery for burial in Santo Domingo Los Ocotes, Guatemala, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025, the day after dozens of passengers died when the bus they were traveling on plunged into a gorge on the outskirts of Guatemala City.. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Mourners attend the burial ceremony for victims of a bus crash at the cemetery in Santo Domingo Los Ocotes, Guatemala, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. Dozens of passengers died after their bus plunged into a gorge and landed under a bridge on Feb. 10 on the outskirts of the Guatemalan capital. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Pall bearers carry a coffin that contains the remains of a victim of a bus crash, to a cemetery for a burial service, in Santo Domingo Los Ocotes, Guatemala, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. Dozens of passengers died after their bus plunged into a gorge and landed under a bridge on Feb. 10 on the outskirts of the Guatemalan capital. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Pall bearers carry a coffin that contains the remains of a victim of a bus crash, to a cemetery for a burial service in Santo Domingo Los Ocotes, Guatemala, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. Dozens of passengers died after their bus plunged into a gorge and landed under a bridge on Feb. 10 on the outskirts of the Guatemalan capital. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Mourners pay their final respects to the victim of a bus crash at a funeral service in Santo Domingo Los Ocotes, Guatemala, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. Dozens of passengers died after their bus plunged into a gorge and landed under a bridge on Feb. 10 on the outskirts of the Guatemalan capital. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Mourners pay their final respects to the victim of a bus crash at a funeral service in Santo Domingo Los Ocotes, Guatemala, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. Dozens of passengers died after their bus plunged into a gorge and landed under a bridge on Feb. 10 on the outskirts of the Guatemalan capital. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Mourners pay their final respects to the victims of a bus crash at a funeral service in Santo Domingo Los Ocotes, Guatemala, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. Dozens of passengers died after their bus plunged into a gorge and landed under a bridge on Feb. 10 on the outskirts of the Guatemalan capital. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Mourners attend a funeral service for victims of a bus crash, in Santo Domingo Los Ocotes, Guatemala, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. Dozens of passengers died after their bus plunged into a gorge and landed under a bridge on Feb. 10 on the outskirts of the Guatemalan capital. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Pall bearers carry a coffin that contains the remains of a victim of a bus crash, at a funeral service in Santo Domingo Los Ocotes, Guatemala, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. Dozens of passengers died after their bus plunged into a gorge and landed under a bridge on Feb. 10 on the outskirts of the Guatemalan capital. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo and first lady Lucrecia Peinado, pay their final respects to the victims of a bus crash, at a funeral service in Santo Domingo Los Ocotes, Guatemala, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. Dozens of passengers died after their bus plunged into a gorge and landed under a bridge on Feb. 10 on the outskirts of the Guatemalan capital. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo, center, and first lady Lucrecia Peinado, pay their final respects to the victims of a bus crash, at a funeral service in Santo Domingo Los Ocotes, Guatemala, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. Dozens of passengers died after their bus plunged into a gorge and landed under a bridge on Feb. 10 on the outskirts of the Guatemalan capital. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Mourners attend a funeral service for the victims of a bus crash, in Santo Domingo Los Ocotes, Guatemala, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. Dozens of passengers died after their bus plunged into a gorge and landed under a bridge on Feb. 10 on the outskirts of the Guatemalan capital. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Mourners attend a funeral service for victims of a bus crash, in Santo Domingo Los Ocotes, Guatemala, Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. Dozens of passengers died after their bus plunged into a gorge and landed under a bridge on Feb. 10 on the outskirts of Guatemalan capital. (AP Photo/Moises Castillo)

Iran eased some restrictions on its people and, for the first time in days, allowed them to make phone calls abroad via their mobile phones on Tuesday. It did not ease restrictions on the internet or permit texting services to be restored as the death toll from days of bloody protests against the state rose to at least 2,000 people, according to activists.

Although Iranians were able to call abroad, people outside the country could not call them, several people in the capital told The Associated Press.

The witnesses, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal, said SMS text messaging still was down and internet users inside Iran could not access anything abroad, although there were local connections to government-approved websites.

It was unclear if restrictions would ease further after authorities cut off all communications inside the country and to the outside world late Thursday.

Here is the latest:

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen says the new sanctions will be imposed on Iranian officials over the crackdown on protestors.

“The rising number of casualties in Iran is horrifying. I unequivocally condemn the excessive use of force and continued restriction of freedom,” von der Leyen said in a post on social media.

She said that in cooperation with EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas “further sanctions on those responsible for the repression will be swiftly proposed. We stand with the people of Iran who are bravely marching for their liberty.”

The EU has already imposed sanctions on members of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and others over past concerns about human rights abuses in Iran.

Kaja Kallas said in Berlin Tuesday that the Iranian government might go the way of former President Bashar Assad’s government in Syria, which fell swiftly in late 2024 in a “surprise for everybody.” But she added that “very often these regimes are very, very resilient.”

Kallas said that “right now … it is not clear whether the regime is going to fall or not.” She said it would ultimately have to be up to the Iranian people to make decisions.

The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in previous unrest in recent years, gave the latest death toll on Tuesday.

It said 1,847 of the dead were protesters and 135 were government-affiliated.

This came a day after the European Parliament announced it would ban Iranian diplomats and representatives.

“Iran does not seek enmity with the EU, but will reciprocate any restriction,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi wrote Tuesday on X.

He also criticized the European Parliament for not taking any significant action against Israel for the more than two-year war in Gaza that has killed more than 71,400 Palestinians, while banning Iranian diplomats after just “a few days of violent riots.”

Dutch Foreign Minister David van Weel said he summoned Iran’s ambassador to the Netherlands “to formally protest the excessive violence against peaceful protesters, large-scale arbitrary arrests, and internet shutdowns, calling for immediate restoration of internet access inside the Islamic Republic.

In a post on X, Weel also said the Dutch government supports EU sanctions against “human rights violators in Iran.”

The United Nations human rights chief is calling on Iranian authorities to immediately halt violence and repression against peaceful protesters, citing reports of hundreds killed and thousands arrested in a wave of demonstrations in recent weeks.

“The killing of peaceful demonstrators must stop, and the labelling of protesters as ‘terrorists’ to justify violence against them is unacceptable,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk said in a statement Tuesday.

Alluding to a wave of protests in Iran in 2022, Türk said demonstrators have sought “fundamental changes” to governance in the country, “and once again, the authorities’ reaction is to inflict brutal force to repress legitimate demands for change.”

“This cycle of horrific violence cannot continue,” he added.

It was also “extremely worrying” to hear some public statements from judicial officials mentioning the prospect of the use of the death penalty against protesters through expedited judicial proceedings, Türk said.

“Iranians have the right to demonstrate peacefully. Their grievances need to be heard and addressed, and not instrumentalized by anyone,” Türk said.

Finland’s foreign minister says she is summoning the Iranian ambassador after authorities in Tehran restricted internet access.

“Iran’s regime has shut down the internet to be able to kill and oppress in silence," Elina Valtonen wrote in a social media post Tuesday, adding, “this will not be tolerated. We stand with the people of Iran — women and men alike.”

Finland is “exploring measures to help restore freedom to the Iranian people” together with the European Union, Valtonen said.

Separately, Finnish police said they believe at least two people entered the courtyard of the Iranian embassy in Helsinki without permission Monday afternoon and tore down the Iranian flag. The embassy’s outer wall was also daubed with paint.

Iranian security forces arrested what a state television report described as “terrorist groups” linked to Israel in the southeastern city of Zahedan.

The report, without providing additional details, said the group entered through Iran’s eastern borders and carried U.S.-made guns and explosives that the group had planned to use in assassinations and acts of sabotage.

The Israeli military did not immediately comment on the allegations.

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate hailed people who have “long warned about this repression, at great personal risk.”

“The protests in Iran cannot be separated from the long-standing, state-imposed restrictions on girls’ and women’s autonomy, in all aspects of public life including education. Iranian girls, like girls everywhere, demand a life with dignity,” Yousafzai wrote on X.

“(Iran’s) future must be driven by the Iranian people, and include the leadership of Iranian women and girls — not external forces or oppressive regimes,” she added.

Yousafzai was awarded the peace prize in 2014 at the age of 17 for her fight for girls’ education in her home country, Pakistan. She is the youngest Nobel laureate.

The French Foreign Ministry said it has “reconfigured” its embassy in Tehran after reports that the facility's nonessential staff left Iran earlier this week.

The embassy's nonessential staff left the country Sunday and Monday, French news agency Agence France-Presse reported.

The ambassador remained on site and the embassy continued to function, the ministry said late Monday night.

Associated Press writer Angela Charlton contributed from Paris.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said he believes the Iranian government is in its “final days and weeks,” as he renewed a call for Iranian authorities to end violence against demonstrators immediately.

“If a regime can only keep itself in power by force, then it’s effectively at the end,” Merz said Tuesday during a visit to Bengaluru, India. “I believe we are now seeing the final days and weeks of this regime. In any case, it has no legitimacy through elections in the population. The population is now rising up against this regime.”

Merz said he hoped there is “a possibility to end this conflict peacefully," adding that Germany is in close contact with the U.S. and European governments.

The Israeli military said it continues to be “on alert for surprise scenarios” due to the ongoing protests in Iran, but has not made any changes to guidelines for civilians, as it does prior to a concrete threat.

“The protests in Iran are an internal matter,” Israeli military spokesperson Brig. Gen. Effie Defrin wrote on X.

Israel attacked Iran’s nuclear program over the summer, resulting in a 12-day war that killed nearly 1,200 Iranians and almost 30 Israelis. Over the past week, Iran has threatened to attack Israel if Israel or the U.S. attacks.

Mobile phones in Iran were able to call abroad Tuesday after a crackdown on nationwide protests in which the internet and international calls were cut. Several people in Tehran were able to call The Associated Press.

The AP bureau in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, was unable to call those numbers back.

Witnesses said the internet remained cut off from the outside world. Iran cut off the internet and calls on Thursday as protests intensified.

This frame grab from videos taken between Jan. 9 and Jan. 11, 2026, and circulating on social media purportedly shows images from a morgue with dozens of bodies and mourners after crackdownon the outskirts of Iran's capital, in Kahrizak, Tehran Province. (UGC via AP)

This frame grab from videos taken between Jan. 9 and Jan. 11, 2026, and circulating on social media purportedly shows images from a morgue with dozens of bodies and mourners after crackdown on the outskirts of Iran's capital, in Kahrizak, Tehran Province. (UGC via AP)

This frame grab from videos taken between Jan. 9 and Jan. 11, 2026, and circulating on social media purportedly shows images from a morgue with dozens of bodies and mourners after crackdown on the outskirts of Iran's capital, in Kahrizak, Tehran Province. (UGC via AP)

Protesters hold up placards and flags as they demonstrate outside the Iranian Embassy in London, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Shiite Muslims hold placards and chant slogans during a protest against the U.S. and show solidarity with Iran in Lahore, Pakistan, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/K.M. Chaudary)

Activists carrying a photograph of Reza Pahlavi take part in a rally supporting protesters in Iran at Lafayette Park, across from the White House, in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Protesters burn the Iranian national flag during a rally in support of the nationwide mass demonstrations in Iran against the government in Paris, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Michel Euler)

People attend a rally in Frankfurt, Germany, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (Boris Roessler/dpa via AP)

A picture of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is set alight by protesters outside the Iranian Embassy in London, Monday, Jan. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)