Asháninka child in the locality of Poyeni, Satipo, Junín, in 1995

An Asháninka child in the locality of Poyeni, Satipo, 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 mandatory indoctrination. Hundreds of native people 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. Those rescued 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 guarded 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 Ene, Tambo, and Perené valleys, 6,000 died, and nearly 5,000 were kept in captivity 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.