At least 17 people died on Monday in Peru as protesters trying to storm an airport clashed with security forces in the latest violent spasm of a month-old political crisis.
The new chapter of bloodshed took place in the southeastern city of Juliaca, in the Puno region, an official in the local ombudsman’s office said.
The previous death toll of 12 rose as five people among the 40 or so wounded in the clashes died of their injuries, the official said.
Photo: Reuters
Like others have for the past month, the protesters were demanding the departure of Peruvian President Dina Boluarte, who took over after the ouster and arrest of former Peruvian president Pedro Castillo on Dec. 7 last year.
Castillo’s removal after he tried to dissolve Congress and start ruling by decree — he faced several corruption probes — triggered weeks of clashes nationwide in a nation beset by years of political instability.
Protesters angry over the removal of the leftist Castillo want Boluarte to resign and new elections right away. They have already been moved up from 2026 to April next year.
Overall, with the new fatalities, the clashes sparked by the ouster of Castillo have now left 39 people dead.
The people killed on Monday in Juliaca had gunshot wounds, an official at Calos Monge Hospital told a Peruvian TV channel.
“The police are shooting at us,” said one demonstrator, who declined to give his name. “We ask Dina to resign. Accept the fact that people do not want you.”
“What is happening is Peruvians are slaughtering each other. I ask for calm,” Juliaca Mayor Oscar Caceres said in a desperate plea for peace.
Alberto Otarola, the new president’s chief of staff, said thousands of protesters had approached the airport on Monday and about 2,000 of them attacked police while trying to storm the facility with makeshift weapons and gun powder.
Demonstrators had already tried on Saturday to overrun Juliaca airport, which is being protected by police and troops.
Juliaca, on the border with Bolivia, is home to many people from the Aymara indigenous group. The region has been a hotbed of anti-government protests since the latest crisis broke out. An open-ended strike was declared there on Wednesday last week.
Protests against the Boluarte government took a break over the new year holidays, but resumed that day.
As of Monday, protesters were blocking roads in six of the nation’s 25 departments, including areas popular with tourists.
Boluarte was Castillo’s vice president and is a leftist like him, but many indigenous people call her a traitor who does not defend their cause.
In another development on Monday, the government said it was barring entry to former Bolivian president Evo Morales, accusing him of trying to interfere in Peru’s affairs.
Morales, who was his nation’s first indigenous president, has expressed support for the protests against Boluarte, especially in the ethnic Aymara Puno region which borders Bolivia.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home