Official : 4,000 disappeared in Peru

Peru's human rights office says some four-thousand Peruvians have "disappeared" since 1980 in the war against left-wing rebels.

In its first official report on the issue, the office said most of the victims were suspected Shining Path rebels kidnapped and murdered by the security forces in remote Andean vilages.

The deputy head of the ombudsman's office, Gino Costa, said the report showed there was a deliberate policy of disappearances.

The guerrilla war fought by the Maoist Shining Path and the smaller Tupac Amaru Movement (MRTA) has caused about 30,000 deaths and billions of dollars in damages since 1980.

Shining Path was mostly destroyed after the arrest of its leader Abimael Guzman in 1992.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service