Anti-government protests in Peru claimed a new victim the day before in a city in the southeastern Andes, bringing the number of deaths in two months of demonstrations in the South American country to 60.
President Dina Boluarte confirmed that a 22-year-old man died on Thursday in the Apurímac region, while the Puno region’s health department indicated that protests in the city of Juliaca, near the border with Bolivia, left 23 demonstrators injured. , nine are hospitalized, including three for gunshot wounds, including an 11-year-old boy with a leg wound.
Boluarte said at a press conference at the presidential palace that he was very sorry for the death of Denilson Huaraca Vílchez during a confrontation in which an interprovincial transport bus was set on fire.
Marcelino Huaraca, brother of the deceased, told The Associated Press by phone that his brother had entered a technical institute to study auto mechanics and that he was traveling in a truck with other protesters which, he said, was fired upon by police. He added that Denilson received a firearm projectile with entry and exit at the height of the thoracic region.
A copy of Denilson’s autopsy, seen by the AP, indicates that he died of hypovolemic shock, lung perforation and open chest trauma from a gunshot.
The clash with the police in Apurímac left another three injured by a firearm projectile, two of them with bullets in the chest and the third with a leg wound.
On the other hand, the Ombudsman’s Office indicated in a report that there were clashes in the vicinity of the Inca Manco Cápac airport in the city of Juliaca when protesters sought to enter while commemorating a month after the death of 19 in another lethal clash with the police.
Earlier, the protesters participated in a Catholic mass on a road and then walked the streets near the airport demanding the resignation of President Dina Boluarte and the 130 members of Parliament, a request that is spreading in other parts of Peru.
On January 9, the deadliest episode of clashes between protesters and police officers during the more than two-month government of President Boluarte took place in Juliaca. On that day, 19 died, almost all of them from firearms, including a doctor who was helping injured protesters and a policeman burned inside the patrol car on a street in that city.
Demonstrations have also been taking place in the capital since late January after thousands arrived from the Andes, especially from the south. Many of them live off the support of their family, friends or neighborhood networks who have contributed money for their modest maintenance in Lima.
Boluarte assures that he will not resign until his successor is chosen in early elections, but the Peruvian Congress has shelved four projects to advance elections, including one from the government. The last two proposals set the call to the polls in October and December, but they were rejected.
The protests add up to a total of 60 deaths, mostly protesters, according to the Ombudsman’s Office. Demonstrations are reactivated and prolonged for two months after the Boluarte government began on December 7 when the then vice president assumed power to replace the dismissed Pedro Castillo. The ex-president was removed by Congress after its attempt to dissolve him to avoid his removal, and later imprisoned on charges of rebellion.
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