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EPAF Press Relase October 7, 2008
Six Victims of 1985 Accomarca Massacre Identified
Successful identifications mark breakthrough as former military lieutenant Telmo Hurtado and Juan Rivera Rondon face charges
Lima, PERU. Twenty-three years after the brutal massacre of over 50 people in the community of Accomarca (Ayacucho, Peru), the Peruvian Team of Forensic Anthropology (EPAF) has successfully identified six of the fallen victims.
The massacre occurred on August 14, 1985. According to the testimonies, after arriving to the plaza of Llocllapampa for a community assembly, the community residents were ushered into three separate houses by the military - led by First Lieutenant Telmo Hurtado, currently incarcerated in Miami, Florida, and Lieutenant Juan Rivera Rondon. Accusing all of membership in the Shining Path, the military officers separated the men, women, and children into the houses. In spite of their pleas for mercy, the military assassinated all inside, setting every house on fire and throwing grenades inside.
A U.S. federal district court in Miami in March 2008 ordered Hurtado to pay $37 million in reparations to two survivors of the massacre. Rivera Rondon, also captured in the U.S., has already been extradited and is waiting for his trial in the Penitentiary Center "Miguel Castro Castro".
The identified victims include four adult women and two children.
The successful identifications resulted from DNA work completed by Bode Laboratories and the comparison of ante and post-mortem data collected by EPAF forensic anthropologists.
"The victims' remains were found in very bad condition," declares the staff from EPAF. "DNA was the only way to make an identification given that state, and we were worried that even that wouldn't work. It was not possible to identify all the remains, which is sad for the families of the victims, but these six identifications are very important because they prove that the people found in the grave are indeed the people thought to be there."
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