LIMA, March 4 (NNN-PRENSA LATINA) — Opposition protesters Friday blocked the main routes to the north and east of the Peruvian capital, as the protests that for almost three months have intensified, with intervals, demanding the resignation of President Dina Boluarte.
Hundreds of people blocked the passage at various points of the central highway, which connects Lima with the Andean and Amazonian center of the country, since dawn with burning tires and rocks.
Meanwhile, hundreds of other popular opponents blocked several sections of the Túpac Amaru highway, which connects the center of the city with the area called Lima Norte and is the exit route from the capital to the north of the Peruvian coast.
The first groups of marchers who arrived to protest in Lima participated, mainly from the southern Andean region of Puno, a stronghold of opposition demonstrations that has recorded 48 deaths in riots, mostly killed by firearms, a policeman murdered and 11 civilians.
The demonstrators chanted slogans rejecting the president’s permanence in office, early general elections and a constituent assembly, and in both cases they withdrew peacefully.
The Ombudsman’s Office, which monitors the demonstrations and their consequences, reported that until noon the Police had not detained any protesters.
There were also marches and sit-ins in various parts of the city, such as the Atocongo area, on the south side of Lima, and Santa Anita, on the east side, in what appears to be a change in the modality of the opponents, due to the controversial municipal ban on marches and political rallies in the historic center of Lima.
The protests were felt despite the harsh actions of the Police, who on Thursday dispersed peaceful marches in the center and other neighborhoods of the city with tear gas, operations in which they fired pellets that slightly injured several protesters.
Particular outrage was caused by a video that shows an Andean indigenous woman advancing to the police cordon that was blocking the way to the protesters and a police officer shooting her body, at close range, with a tear gas grenade.
In this regard, the National Human Rights Coordinator condemned “police violence against brothers and sisters from regions that are peacefully protesting,” which it considered “a clear expression of racism.”
Meanwhile, buses with protesters continue to leave Puno for Lima despite reports of police hostility on the way and in the accommodation of those who arrived in this capital. — NNN-PRENSA LATINA
