Reference : V-P-PE-E-00936
Date : 10/2014
Country/Region : PERU
Caption : Huancasancos. Alejandrina's modest home.
Photographer : COHEN, Nadia Shira
Keyword : DECEASED PERSON; CTA
Confidentiality level : public
Publication restrictions : publication without restrictions
Copyright : ICRC
Description : On June 23, 1983, at one in the morning, Alejandrina was resting in her room breastfeeding her three month old baby, Alcira, when a group of men broke into her home and shot at her, killing her baby and injuring her severely. Bullet fragments were removed one by one leaving internal injuries, and until this day she remains crippled, walking with a cane. However, it is perhaps the psychological scars of losing her young child in such a traumatic way that has plagued her all these years.
On October 27 2014, after almost 30 years of waiting, the families of 80 people unaccounted for between 1983 and1984 came from different regions of the country, to retrieve the remains of their loved ones at the Legal Medicine Institute of Ayacucho. The victims who were from various communities of Ayacucho such as Chungui, Huancasancos, Huanta, Vilcashuamán, Tambo, Canayre, and Huamanga were exhumed and identified during 2014. Many government and nongovernmental organisations contributed to the event such as the International Committee of the Red Cross who provided transportation of families and coffins to the communities from Ayacucho, as well as the Peruvian Red Cross who provided shelter for many families who came to recover their loved ones from far away communities. Between 13,000 and 16,000 people disappeared during the armed violence that took place in Peru between years 1980 and 2000. Many families are still left without any knowledge of the fate of their relatives, they cannot give them a decent burial, solve official issues of widowhood or orphan hood, to receive economical, psychological or psychosocial support and obtain reparation.
Original material : digital
Resolution : 3744x5616
Orientation : portrait
Colour/B&W : colour

×
×