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DNA identifies Peruvian victims

Investigators in Peru say they have for the first time successfully used DNA to identify victims of the country's civil conflict in the 1980s and 1990s.

The technique identified 23 victims, who were buried in Peru's largest mass grave in 1984.

The director of the Peruvian forensic anthropology team, Jose Pablo Baraybar, said they expected to identify several more victims in the next few weeks.

Some 70,000 people died in the conflict between the military and Maoist rebels.

The 23 positively identified human remains are the single largest group of victims identified from the conflict in Peru.

These victims formed part of a larger group of more than 120 men, women and children killed in a single massacre by the Peruvian military.

The exhumation and DNA sampling was partially funded by the US state department.

Read entire article at BBC