Photos: © Percy Rojas – Memory Area EPAF

I do not remember the exact date, but it was between April 10 and 12 of 1989 when at 4 in the morning a group of Senderistas entered our community. I remember that some had military clothing; other normal clothes. They rang the church bell so that we would meet in the town square. I think we were 25 people who gathered. The rest of the townspeople no longer slept in their homes; in the evenings they went to sleep in their fields, in the caves of the hills. They began beating the males and forcing them to do exercises. Afterwards, they told them to enter the community center. Some sensed that they were going to kill them there and escaped; others were brought to the center. On the premises they killed seven people, including my husband Rafael Ramos. Mr. Felix was shot and wounded but managed to escape with another villager. When I entered the center my husband was still breathing, I told him: “Don’t leave me. Don’t go.“ He died in my arms.

(Aurea Palomino, Chungui, Ayacucho. December, 2014.)