LIMA: Peruvian authorities are probing the murder of 14 shamans in the Amazon rainforest region since 2010 in what officials said Monday may be to be targeted assassinations by religious fanatics.
The murdered shamans were members of the Shawi ethnic group that live in the Balsapuerto area in the Upper Amazonas region, some 800 kilometers (500 miles) northeast of Lima, said Vicente Otta, the deputy minister of inter-cultural affairs.
Otta, who said that a team of government investigators had been dispatched to probe the case, spoke at a press conference along with Roger Rumrrill, a renowned expert on the Amazon rainforest and a government consultant.
"The healers were murdered in a brutal way," said Rumrrill, "hacked by machetes and axes, stoned, and even shot with rifles, and their bodies then hurled into rivers where they were devoured by piranas."
Otta said that prosecutors are investigating Balsapuerto Mayor Alfredo Torres and his brother Augusto in connection with the murders.
According to Rumrrill, Torres "is a religious fanatic and Protestant fundamentalist who considers the shamans his enemies" and "people possessed by demons."
AFP attempted to contact Torres, but communications with the remote town was impossible.
However Torres, in a recent interview on Frecuencia Latina television, denied any role in the murders. "If anyone has any solid proof, let them show it," he said.
Otta acknowledged that there are other possible explanations, including jealousy among shamans and land disputes. Nevertheless "this is a double crime, against the healers and against the ancestral culture of these people," he said.
About 45 percent of Peru's population of nearly 30 million is of indigenous descent, though most of them are Quechua or Aymara people from the Andes.
The Amazon region river basin, which physically makes up more than half of the country, is home to about 11 percent of the population. About 350,000 of them are members of Amazon indigenous ethnic groups, according to government census figures.
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