Oil firm's helicopter crashes in Peru, 13 killed

Thirteen passengers and pilots were killed when a helicopter exploded and crashed in northern Peru on 7 April, Europa Press reported. The craft belonged to an oil company, Perenco, which helped authorities look for survivors. There were none. Witnesses were cited as saying that the helicopter exploded in the air and crashed 10 minutes before landing at the company's base, in the department of Loreto, the daily Correo reported on 7 April. Mechanical failure was blamed provisionally as investigations continued, La Republica reported. Separately a soldier was killed and another injured in a "terrorist attack" on 5 April on an army base near the town of Kiteni in the central department of Cuzco, the army declared. An army communiqué accused "sharpshooters from terrorist elements" of killing a sergeant and injuring a petty officer in an attack it qualified as a response to "actions the Government has undertaken in the zone," Europa Press reported. The army maintains anti-terrorism bases in this area, the setting for the activities of traffickers and communist guerrillas of the Shining Path, which authorities seemed to blame for the killing. The victim was a young recruit who recently joined the army after finishing his military service, La Razón reported. It cited a former head of the armed forces Joint Command Admiral Jorge Montoya Manrique, as calling for more military resources to end the rebellion of the Shining Path, notorious in the 1980s for its brutality. He said troops needed better equipment to "avoid more misfortunes...this country needs troops and to improve its security they need more and better resources." On 6 April the head of the Armed Forces Joint Command Admiral José Cueto Aservi said there could be more attacks on anti-terrorism bases in the province of La Convención where the killing occurred, La Razón reported. "I hope people understand we are in a war zone. They hide to attack. It is a very difficult zone, which they know better. They murder and withdraw into the hills inside the jungle" he said, referring to guerrillas or drug traffickers.