In this department, where an unlimited strike has been underway since January 4, at least eighteen people have lost their lives in two days, mainly during clashes between police and demonstrators who tried To invade Jualica airport.
MO12345lemonde with AFP
To try to stop violence, a three-day curfew was decreed on Tuesday, January 10, in the Puno region, announced the Peruvian Prime Minister, Alberto Otarola, during a plenary session of Parliament.
Antigrency demonstrations continued on Tuesday with road blockages in six departments. The epicenter of protests remains however the department which has the most of Aymara (Native American people), that of Puno, on the border with Bolivia, where looting of stores and attacks against police vehicles have taken place in the Night from Monday to Tuesday.
At least eighteen people have been killed since Monday in Jualica in clashes between the police and demonstrators, according to the defender of the people (local mediator). The victims have shot injuries, said an official at Carlos Monge Hospital in Juliaca, where they were taken.
These events bring to forty the number of deaths in almost a month of protests since the dismissal by the Parliament, on December 7, of the ex-president, Pedro Castillo, plunging the country into a serious institutional crisis and Politics.
The demonstrators claim the resignation of Dina Boluarte, who arrived at the head of the country after the dismissal of Mr. Castillo. They also require a new parliament and the immediate election holding, already advanced from 2026 to April 2024.
The department of Puno, border with Bolivia, is the epicenter of protests in the country. An unlimited strike has occurred since January 4. This is also the starting point of a march organized by several collectives of citizens and peasants, whose arrival in the capital, Lima, is scheduled around January 12.
tensions with the Bolivia
Monday, Peru prohibited entry into its territory to former Bolivian president Evo Morales for his “intervention” in the internal political affairs of the country. The latter was active in Peruvian politics since the coming to power of Pedro Castillo, in July 2021, and until his ouster, December 7, 2022.
Since then, Mr. Morales has expressed his support for the demonstrations claiming the departure of Dina Boluarte, in particular those which take place in the department of Puno, in which he went last November. The Peruvian right accuses him of pushing the south of the country of secession to be annexed by Bolivia. Dina Boluarte is the sixth person to occupy the presidency in five years, in a country which experiences a permanent political crisis enamelled with suspicions of corruption.