Ayacucho, Peru: The Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) is planning to hold an exhibition Saturday, August 30 containing clothing and personal effects from the mass graves at Putis – one of the final investigative steps to identify the victims and determine what happened to them.

Earlier this year, a team from EPAF was appointed to exhume the Putis site – the largest of Peru’s mass graves, marking one of the most brutal incidents in the country’s 20-year internal conflict. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that in December 1984, 123 men, women and children from the communities of Cayramayo, Vizcatampata, Orccohuasi and Putis were executed by units of the Peruvian Army and buried at Putis.

The exhibit is being held on International Day of the Missing. Also on that day, a ceremony will be held at 10 a.m. at the Civic Center in Huanta province to remember the thousands of people still missing and the persistence of their families in searching for answers. According to the most recent estimates, around 15,000 people are still missing in Peru. Huanta province, in the Ayacucho region, was one of the places most affected by violence.

EPAF is a partner of the Advocacy Project (AP). This summer, AP sent Peace Fellow Ash Kosiewicz to volunteer with the group in Lima.

For more information on Saturday’s events, read EPAF’s press release.

Read the Ash’s blog.