Hatun Asha ambush

The Hatun Asha ambush took place on the eve of the 2016 Peruvian general election,[2] where groups of Shining Path guerrilla fighters armed with long-range rifles and grenades, ambushed a Peruvian military caravan of eight vehicles at Hatun Asha.[3] The ambush began at approximately 5:00 (a.m.), when guerrillas targeted a Peruvian military patrol along a rural road within the Santo Domingo de Acobamba District, located in the District of Huancayo. The vehicles were transporting election ballots and related materials and their transport was handled by soldiers of the 311th Battalion of the Peruvian Armed Forces, who were tasked with guarding polling places in the central Junin region, while the patrol was also to serve in Lima. The ambush left a total of nine government soldiers and two civilian contractors dead as well as five others who escaped wounded.[4] Two hours after the attack, a second attack occurred in Mayapo, on the Llochegua District in Ayacucho, where one police officer was injured and taken to a hospital in Pichari.

Hatun Asha ambush
Part of the Internal conflict in Peru
Peruvian army helicopter responding to incident in VRAEM Valley (2013)
Date April 10, 2016 Location Hatun Asha, Santo Domingo de Acobamba District, Huancayo province
Belligerents
Military of Peru 311th Counterinsurgency Battalion	Shining Path guerilla fighters
Commanders and leaders
President Ollanta Humala General Jorge Moscoso (Joint Armed Forces Command)	Jorge "Comrade Raul" Quispe Abel "Comrade Alejandro" Auqui[1]
Casualties and losses
11 dead 5 wounded	None

The government responded with helicopters being called in to respond to the incident to hunt down the perpetrators, at the same time reassuring that elections would still take place, and that nothing had changed regarding them. The attack was condemned by various figures, including then president Ollanta Humala, and prominent politicians like Pedro Pablo Kuczynski, Alan Garcia, Alejandro Toledo, and Verónika Mendoza.[5][6][7][8][9] It was also condemned by the Office of the Public Defender[10] and the Organization of American States.[11][12]

The ambush marked the deadliest Shining Path attack in years and a resurgence of the group in order to disrupt the Peruvian general elections.