The remains of two Bolivians who died in the War of the Pacific 135 years ago have been returned to Bolivia this week, with ceremonies both in Lima and in Sucre.
The bodies of an officer and a soldier were found in 2008 in the frontier region of Tacna, where in the 1880 battle of El Alto de la Alianza, 5,500 Bolivian soldiers and 6,500 Peruvians fought together against a Chilean army of 19,660 men.
Peruvian Defense minister Jakke Valakivi gave the posthumous award of the Andres Avelino Cacers Medal to the Bolivian soldiers, who were then flown to Sucre and received by President Morales, who gave them the Condor of the Andes condecoration.
Morales, during the ceremonies for the repatriated combatants, said that for Bolivia, “there was no war with Chile at the end of the 19th century, but an invasion of the Bolivian maritime coast” which left the country unjustly without access to the ocean.
