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Asháninka woman with her children in the community of Betania, Junín
An Asháninka woman with her children in the community of Betania, Junín, in October 1993. For more than ten years, Sendero Luminoso held a large part of the Asháninka population in captivity, subjecting them to forced labor, insufficient food, and compulsory indoctrination. Hundreds of indigenous people were massacred, and entire communities lost their crops, animals, and homes. Nevertheless, the Asháninka people managed to organize into self-defense patrols and resist the control that both Sendero Luminoso and the MRTA sought to impose on them. Between 1993 and 1995, the number of Asháninkas freed from Sendero Luminoso steadily grew.