February 25, 2009, Lima, Peru: The Peruvian Forensic Anthropology Team (EPAF) has identified the first victims of a 1984 massacre in Putis, Peru, giving some answers to families of the “disappeared” after 25 years of uncertainty.

The identifications are based on the results of the DNA analysis performed by EPAF in collaboration with the BODE Technology Group. A preliminary report on the identifications was delivered to prosecutors on Monday, February 23.

So far, EPAF has identified 23 victims, including 15 women and 8 men. Five of the identified victims are under 14 years old.

“This is the largest collective identification…ever conducted in the country,” said Jose Pablo Baraybar, Executive Director of EPAF. “That it took place in the context of political violence investigation gives hope to thousands of families that after all these years it is still possible to get answers and guarantee their right to know.”

The Putis massacre is one of the most horrific episodes of Peru’s two-decade internal conflict. The Peruvian Truth and Reconciliation Commission found that in December 1984, 123 men, women and children were executed at Putis by units of the Peruvian Army.

According to testimony given to the Commission, soldiers gathered the villagers, many of whom had hidden in the mountains for fear of rebel attacks, and convinced them to move to Putis, where they could create a new settlement. The soldiers gathered the men at gunpoint and ordered them to dig a hole behind the church, telling them it would become a trout farm. Men, women and children were then shot and buried in the hole they had dug themselves.

A forensic team from EPAF exhumed the grave in May 2008, and subsequently held exhibits of the clothing and items found within it. Hundreds of people attended the clothing exhibitions, identifying items belonging to their missing loved ones.

Advocacy Project (AP) Executive Director Iain Guest and Peace Fellow Ash Kosiewicz documented the exhumation, and AP produced a film for EPAF titled “If I Don’t Come Back, Look for Me in Putis.”

In total, about 69,000 Peruvians lost their lives during the country’s long and violent struggle between two insurgent groups (the Shining Path and the Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Army) and the government. More than 15,000 of the victims disappeared, and of these many were targeted by the police and armed forces. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimated that there are more than 4,000 clandestine burial sites in Peru.

In the case of Putis, it is likely that not all the victims will be identified. Beyond the difficulties of an investigation taking place 25 years after the fact, more than half of the Putis victims are thought to be children. Children are harder to identify, since their remains are less resistant to degradation.

However, the work continues, and each victim identified is important. EPAF is dedicated to the search, recovery, and identification of the 15,000 Peruvians still missing, and to raising awareness about what happened to them and their families.

EPAF’s work is made possible by the collaboration of the BODE Technology Group and Creative Learning, as well as the financial support of the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor (DRL) of the US State Department, and the support of the International Committee of the Red Cross in gathering ante mortem information.