Thirty-three people were killed and seven wounded February 23 when Shining Path guerrillas attacked an all-night prayer meeting at a small Pentecostal church in the Andean mountain village of Ccano. The Shining Path, a communist revolutionary group, apparently struck the congregation because some of its men had joined one of the many civil-defense militias formed by the Peruvian military. According to church officials, some denominations have been preaching against and actively opposing the Shining Path.
Survivors said men drove up to the church, locked its doors, sprayed the congregation with gunfire, and then set the church building afire. Villagers said 63 children lost one or both parents in the attack.
