A forensic team in Peru is preparing to identify more than 120 victims of a 1984 massacre by the Peruvian military, and in the process provide some answers for families of those who "disappeared" during 20 years of violent internal conflict.
 
The Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF), a partner of The Advocacy Project (AP), was appointed last week by a special prosecutor in the province of Ayacucho to investigate several mass graves in the community of Putis, Ayacucho.
 
For the next two weeks, a team of about 15 EPAF scientists and staff members will work at a remote mountain site 11,483 feet (3,500 meters) above sea level, exhuming remains from a pit thought to contain about 80 bodies.
 
EPAF is working independently of the government. Jose Pablo Baraybar, Director of EPAF, said the investigation could open the door to more civil society participation in identifying those who disappeared between 1980 and 2000. It could also lead to legal action to bring justice to victims' relatives.
 
"We hope that this will attract more intervention...pushing the state, in a way, to fulfill its obligation to the victims," said Mr Baraybar. "They have been dragging their feet for a very long time. There's no strategy in the search for the missing."
 
An estimated 69,000 Peruvians lost their lives during the long and violent struggle between two insurgent groups (the Shining Path and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Army) and the Peruvian government. More than 15,000 of the victims disappeared, and of these many were targeted by the police and armed forces. Former Peruvian President Alberto K Fujimori is currently on trial in Peru for authorizing two massacres in the early 1990s.

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Quelle: OneWorld.net