Seven police died Saturday in an ambush while traveling in a coca-growing valley in southern Peru, the national police said.
The attack took place in La Convencion province in the Cusco region, in a wide valley known as VRAEM (the acronym stands for Valley of the Rivers Apurimac, Ene and Mantaro).
The armed forces there have been fighting drug gangs and the remnants of the Shining Path leftist group for decades.
"We regret the loss of our police brothers, who were ambushed when they were traveling in a police vehicle in the town center of Natividad in #Vraem, where 7 police officers have died and one police officer has survived," the national police said on Twitter.
In August 2022, the Peruvian Army claimed to have seriously injured Shining Path leader Victor Quispe Palomino, or "Comrade Jose," in an operation against "terrorist camps."
A year and a half earlier, in January 2021, the Peruvian military dealt a severe blow to the guerrillas -- known in Spanish as the Sendero Luminoso -- by killing in the VRAEM the group's number two, a man known as "Comrade Raul," one of the most wanted men in Peru and a brother of Comrade Jose.
Almost all Shining Path leaders are dead or imprisoned, but their remnants number some 350 members, 80 of whom are armed.
The Maoist group emerged in 1980 when it launched a "people's war" against the government. The ensuing two decades of clashes with the army left a toll of 69,000 dead and missing, according to the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.