Asháninka residents, freed from a Shining Path camp

Asháninka community members, freed from a Shining Path camp through the military operation "Ene," wait for donated food distributed by the Army in Cutivireni, Junín, in 1991. For more than ten years, Sendero Luminoso kept a large portion of the Asháninka population in captivity, subjecting them to forced labor, insufficient food, and mandatory indoctrination. Hundreds of indigenous people were massacred and entire communities lost their crops, animals, and homes. Nevertheless, the Asháninka people managed to organize themselves 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 Asháninka people freed from Sendero Luminoso grew steadily. Those rescued were taken to refugee communities established in the localities of Puerto Supe, Poyeni, and Betania — in the Río Tambo basin — and Valle Esmeralda — in the Río Ene basin — all located in the central jungle region of the country and protected by the Armed Forces.