BOGOTA, (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Peruvian special forces rescued 26 children and 13 women, some of whom had been raped and held captive for three decades, when they raided a southeastern jungle camp of the left-wing Shining Path rebel group.
“Many of these children were born there and are the result of rapes carried out on women by members of the Shining Path,” Vice Defence Minister Ivan Vega told local reporters earlier this week.
It was the largest number of children rescued from the rebels in a single operation, he added.
The almost defunct Shining Path has not posed a threat to the stability of the government for years, but rebel bands remain active in cocaine-producing areas and occasionally ambush security forces in jungle valleys.
The children rescued in the July 23 raid were aged between one and 14, and some were born and grew up in the jungle camp in the VRAEM region, which takes in the Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro river valleys, local media reported.
Numerous fields of coca, the raw ingredient for cocaine, fill the region’s verdant mountain slopes and valleys, a 20-hour drive from the capital Lima, making Peru one of the world’s largest cocaine producers.
