Peru's disappeared: Dozens look for relatives lost to violence. A woman who knows their sorrow helps

The easiest thing might have been to let go. To refresh the flowers at her husband’s grave and find comfort in retrieving his bones, a milestone in a country where 20,000 people disappeared between 1980 and 2000.

Lidia Flores chose a different path, though: to search for others who also went missing during Peru's most violent period.

“I can’t stay calm when others, like I did, are crying,” Flores said from her home in Ayacucho, a Peruvian city whose name translates as “nook of the dead” from the Quechua language. “They are searching and I must be there for them.”

Thousands more have disappeared thought Latin America under dictatorships, during armed conflicts or due to organized crime. Their wives, mothers and daughters have historically fought for justice, but Flores’ case is distinctive because even after finding her husband’s remains 40 years ago, her loss led her to commit to a greater cause.

For several years, she has presided over the National Association of Relatives of Detained and Disappeared Persons of Peru. Known for its Spanish initials, Anfasep, it was founded in 1983 and has about 140 members who advocate for truth and reparations.

“Sometimes I feel at ease, but then I wonder, why did this happen?” said Flores, who Peruvians rarely address by name. Most call her “mami” or “madrecita,” an affectionate Spanish word derived from “mother,” as if she cared for them all.

“I won’t let go because I made a commitment,” she added. “For as long as I live, I will demand justice for all and find out why my husband was killed.”

WHY DID 20,000 PERUVIANS DISAPPEAR?

Soon after Flores last saw him alive, Felipe Huamán was detained by members of the military dressed as civilians outside his house in July 1984. Flores found his remains a month later, guided by a stranger who saw a corpse matching his description.

Only days had passed since he was thrown down a hill, but stray dogs had gnawed at the remains. Flores took her 2-month-old baby out of her shawl, wrapped what was left of Huamán and climbed uphill, her baby in her arms, her husband’s bones on her back.

She arrived at the prosecutor’s office and requested a death certificate to bury him, but an official told her: “His body is not whole anymore. Throw him into the river or burn what’s left of him and find your peace.” So she wrapped up the bones, went home and bribed a grave digger to bury Huamán at midnight, as she peeked and wept behind a tree.

Stories like hers are part of the aftermath of a brutal fight between the Peruvian government and the insurgency of Sendero Luminoso (or Shining Path), a Communist organization that claimed to seek social transformation through an armed revolution.

Founded in the 1970s by Abimael Guzman, the group turned violent a decade later. Older Peruvians still tell tales about donkeys strapped with explosives detonating in crowds, bombs placed under streetlamps to plunge cities into darkness and massacres that wiped out entire families.

The terror, though, was not merely unleashed by the insurgents. The armed forces were equally responsible for deaths and human rights violations.

Hundreds of men — many of them innocent — were captured by the military, often to face torture and execution. Others were slain and buried in mass graves by insurgents seeking to control communities by spreading fear.

Although hundreds of people have disappeared for other motives since then, the Truth Commission said this was the most violent period in Peru’s history. More than 69,000 people are counted as “fatal victims” — about 20,000 classified as “disappeared” and the rest killed by insurgents or the military.

“In many ways, Peru is still dealing with the repercussions of the political violence from the late 20th century,” said Miguel La Serna, a history professor at the University of North Carolina.

“Whole generations of adult men disappeared and that impacted the demographics in these communities. People moved out to escape the violence and some never returned,” he added. “And that’s to say nothing of the social, collective trauma that people experienced.”

A LONELY SEARCH

Those unsure of what happened to their relatives wandered the streets asking for clues and listened to radio news reports. Every time a discovery of remains was announced, they headed out to those locations and turned over corpses, hoping to spot a familiar face.

“Pig and dogs ate the bodies, but we got used to that,” said Adelina García, whose 27-year-old husband, Zósimo Tenorio, disappeared in 1983. “I felt no disgust or fear.”

The couple had just moved from a nearby town to flee the violence from Sendero Luminoso. They thought they would be safe in Ayacucho, where the armed forces patrolled the streets, but soon realized they were wrong.

“It was tough,” García said. “Every night I thought: Tomorrow we won’t wake up. Which of them will kill us? The insurgents or the military?”

She was sleeping when soldiers stormed into her home. They dragged Tenorio from their bed, called him a “terrorist” and took him away. They wrecked their belongings, stole their savings and hit García until she lay unconscious on the floor, next to her year-old crying child.

“Even presidents have told us that it’s been a long time and we should turn the page, but we can’t do that,” García said. “When a person dies, you hold a wake according to your religion, but for us, there’s always a question: What if they’re alive?”

After her husband vanished, a military captain told her that he was taken to Cabitos, an army base where a crematory oven was used to dispose of bodies and more than 130 people were executed. She could never corroborate it, though, so the search continues.

“My face might be wrinkled, but my heart is strong,” García said. “I’ll keep looking for justice and truth.”

ONE LAST GOOD-BYE

For relatives with missing loved ones, keeping a spiritual connection brings peace into their lives.

“I have faith in my dad,” said Luyeva Yangali, who has prayed to her father, Fortunato, since he disappeared near Ayacucho in 1983. “I spoke to him at night as I did to God.”

Her mother looked for him at first, but the family moved to Lima after the military tortured her for allegedly aiding insurgents and Yangali took over the task.

“I was 11 when my family was destroyed and we haven’t recovered,” Yangali said. “I think we never will.”

Despite the work of forensic doctors, prosecutors and organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross, only about 3,200 remains have been found. Some now fear that President Dina Boluarte might cut out the government’s support to keep searching, but many others remain hopeful, watching a handful of Peruvians who finally had a chance to say goodbye.

At a recent restitution ceremony in Ayacucho, Pablo Valerio bid his farewells not to one, but to five of his relatives.

Back in 1984, his parents, two sisters and a brother were slain by members of Sendero Luminoso while Valerio and his younger brother were away studying. They learned about the massacre a month after it happened, when they headed home.

“As we got close, we were surprised that no one, not even our dogs, was around,” said Valerio, 63. “It was all silence. Then we saw our house completely destroyed, burned.”

He found the bodies the next morning, one piled over another inside a pit in which he saw his father’s hands. Fearing the insurgents might come back to kill him and his brother, they left and — until now — haven't had the chance to have a wake.

“It wasn’t until the Truth Commission came that we could dig them out,” Valerio said. “Their bones were not whole anymore, but we placed them in a little box and brought them here.”

The day before a Mass honoring them at Ayacucho’s cathedral, forensic experts, prosecutors and Quechua language interpreters comforted more than a dozen relatives who, like Valerio, had a last chance to see their loved ones’ remains.

Most of them sobbed. Others held hands and prayed. A few more, like Valerio, who treasures the one and only photo he preserves of his father, whispered to the bones: “You are no longer disappeared, but present.”

“No one can kill a spirit, so you remain alive.”

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