IADB Approves $25 Million Loan for Peru Education

The Inter-American Development Bank, IADB, has approved a $25 million loan to Peru to improve education for children in three departments. The funds will be aimed at improving education for children between the ages of three and five in the departments of Ayacucho, Huancavelica and Huanuco, the IADB said in a release. The three departments were [...]

Peru mental health specialists provide treatment for children of political violence

A team of mental health professionals from the National Institute of Child Health began a campaign Monday to provide support for youth who have experienced trauma originating from Peru’s armed conflict from 1980 – 2000 in the department of Ayacucho, located in the country’s south-central Andes. The health experts will provide counseling to 1,250 children [...]

Peru forensic team finds bodies of 25 children killed in Ayacucho during internal war

A forensic team last week in Ayacucho unearthed the bodies of 25 schoolchildren and five adults, buried 26 years ago in three mass graves in the village of Umasi, nine hours south of the city of Huamanga, Ayacucho. The exhumation was ordered by the Ayacucho sub-provincial criminal court, acting on testimonies from five witnesses who [...]

Nine dead in Ayacucho mudslide, heavy rains continue

At least nine people were killed and 15 injured in Huamanga, Ayacucho, Wednesday evening when a mudslide rushed down San Martin street and pushed and entangled several buses and private vehicles at a city intersection. Heavy rains that caused the mudslide also damaged nine old adobe houses and flooded stores on several streets near the [...]

Peru journalists remember fallen colleagues on 26th anniversary of Uchuraccay massacre

Peruvian journalists across Peru held marches and commemoration ceremonies on Monday to honor eight journalists that were murdered 26 years ago in the Andean hamlet of Uchuraccay, Ayacucho. At the same time, the victims’ families demanded that the case be reopened. “So that it never happens again, Uchuraccay martyrs never again!” chanted marchers in Juliaca, [...]

Peru’s defense minister denies military involved in new forced disappearances in Apurimac Valley

An accusation that military personnel were involved in mid-September in the disappearance of at least 11 people in the Apurimac-Ene valley in Ayacucho has been denied by the minister of Defense, Antero Flores-Araoz. Flores-Araoz confirmed that the armed forces led raids on several locations in the area in search of Sendero Luminoso insurgents, but said [...]

Policeman charged for shotgun murder of campesino protesters during February farmers strike

A local prosecutor in Ayacucho has filed murder charges against a police officer for the deaths of two farmers gunned down during a national farmworker’s strike last February. The criminal charges represent an embarrassing blow to Interior Minister Luis Alva Castro, who was hauled before Congress. He issued a blanket denial to avoid a vote [...]

More than 50 injured in Ayacucho protests demanding investigation into farmers deaths

More than 50 people were injured yesterday in the southern highland city of Ayacucho amid protests over the deaths of two farmers killed by police during a farmers strike on Tuesday. Ayacucho’s mayor, Germán Martinelli, told Agencia Andina officers fired tear gas at protesters after they hurled stones at the city’s police station and set [...]