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LIMA The Peruvian government has described as “horrific” the use of children by guerrilla group the Sendero Luminoso (the Shining Path) in its struggle with security forces. Prime Minister Yehude Simón said reports confirmed indications of the Shining Path's morbid practice of using children and women “to finish off” fallen soldiers following confrontations with guerrillas in an Andean area dominated by drug trafficking. “All such acts which use children are horrendous, and say something about the party which uses them. We must give children moral and ethical values (...) not use them for death, staining their small hands with blood,” Simón told journalists as he left Congress. Television station Frecuencia Latina issued a preview of a report on the leftist group, which shows up to 17 children with short haircuts like those of the soldiers and organised in a military formation, said Reuters. The images show some of them handling heavy weapons, such as rifles and machine guns. The next moment the children appear to be playing football. The report, which will be broadcast next Sunday also shows the children shouting with their right fist raised: “long live Marxism, Leninism, Maosim (...) for the proletarian revolution and world socialist.” The report will include an interview with a leader of the movement, called comrade “José” and identified by police as Víctor Quispe Palomino, who appears surrounded by bodyguards, in an unnamed and inaccessible part of the Andes, according to the television station. Further information