Peru uncovers more victims of conflict with Shining Path from 1985

Lima: Peruvian authorities said on Wednesday that they had uncovered five graves in a remote highland region that likely hold the remains of some 60 people killed in 1985 during Peru`s bloody battle against the Shining Path rebel group.

Witnesses said a special police force known as the Sinchis had killed the victims - women, children and the elderly who had been sleeping in their homes, according to the office of the attorney general.

A forensic team would excavate the remains in Ayacucho, the poor Andean region in southern Peru that was the epicentre of the Shining Path`s uprising against the state in the early 1980s.

Peru`s truth commission estimated some 69,000 died or went missing in the ensuing two-decade conflict, one of Latin America`s deadliest. The commission blamed the Shining Path for most killings and state authorities for about a third.