Peru exhumes mass grave from dirty war

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Dawn Media Group

Peru exhumes mass grave from dirty war
Tuesday, 10 Mar, 2009 | 11:59 AM PST |

HUANTA, Peru: Forensic experts began excavating a mass grave Monday, to recover and identify the remains of some 50 people believed to have been killed by soldiers nearly 25 years ago in a dirty war against Maoist guerrillas.

About 200 relatives of the victims gathered at the town cemetery, chanting ‘We demand justice,’ as the exhumation began on orders of the local prosecutor's office.

A lawyer for the relatives, Karim Ninaquispe, said the victims went missing in July and August of 1984 in this remote town 550 kilometers southeast of Lima in Ayacucho, Peru's poorest province and the birthplace of an insurgency by the Shining Path, a Maoist group.

They were taken to Huanta's municipal stadium, where the Peruvian navy had established a base, she told AFP.

‘In that place they were tortured, executed and their bodies were later made to disappear,’ she said.


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