A boy freed from a Shining Path camp through a military operation carries a torch in Cutivireni

A child freed from a Sendero Luminoso camp through a military operation carries a torch in Cutivireni, Junín, in 1995. For more than ten years, Sendero Luminoso held a large portion of the Asháninka population in captivity, subjecting them to forced labor, inadequate food, and compulsory indoctrination. Hundreds of natives were massacred and entire communities lost their crops, animals, and homes. Nevertheless, the Asháninka people managed to organize 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's hands grew steadily. Rescued individuals were taken to refuge communities established in the localities of Puerto Supe, Poyeni, and Betania — in the Tambo river basin — and Valle Esmeralda — in the Ene river basin — all located in the central jungle of the country and protected by the Armed Forces. There are no precise figures, but most specialists and institutions estimate that of the 55,000 people who made up the Asháninka nation, 10,000 were forcibly displaced in the valleys of the Ene, Tambo, and Perené, 6,000 died, and approximately 5,000 were held captive by Sendero Luminoso. It is also estimated that during the years of the conflict, between 30 and 40 communities of this Amazonian ethnic group disappeared.