April 7, 2009, Ayacucho, Peru: A photo exhibit depicting the efforts of the Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) to identify victims of the 1984 massacre at Putis, Peru returned to the region this week.

On Friday, April 3, the new Mayor of Putis, Jorge Fernandez, and a representative of the Asociacion Paz y Esperanza, which supports the victims’ families, attended the opening ceremony for the exhibit (shown below) in the city of Ayacucho.

The exhibit was presented by EPAF, along with the Human Rights Group of Ayacucho and the Movement “Para Que No Se Repita” (So
That it Never Happens Again).

EPAF, an Advocacy Project partner, exhumed the mass grave at Putis in May 2008. The photo exhibit, titled “If I Don’t Come Back, Look for Me in Putis,” is the visual testimony of Domingo Giribaldi, who documented EPAF’s trip to Ayacucho for the public display of the clothing found in the grave.

The largest of Peru’s mass graves, Putis marks 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 photo exhibit can be visited at the Cultural Centre of the University of San Cristóbal in Huamanga until April 12.

The objective of the exhibit is to sensitize the public opinion to the subject of the missing and their families. The exhibit was first displayed in Lima, and has since visited Washington, Denver and London.