The latest official toll brings to 25 the number of people killed in clashes between demonstrators and security forces in Peru during protests following the ouster of President Pedro Castillo.
Twenty of the victims have perished during marches and clashes with the National Police and the Armed Forces in Apurímac, La Libertad, Junín, Arequipa and Ayacucho. Among the dead are four minors, according to the Ombudsman’s Office.
Most of them were young and lived in poor areas of the six southern regions of the country where the protests against the inauguration of Dina Boluarte as president of Peru have been concentrated. According to the Ombudsman’s Office, quoted by the newspaper ‘La República’, there are 20 deaths in confrontations to which should be added five victims of accidents or events linked to the blockades.
During the course of the marches against Boluarte and Congress, 290 police officers were injured and 279 civilians were wounded. Only on the first day of the state of emergency, nine demonstrators were killed by firearms.
In particular, they cite the death of demonstrators around the Alfredo Mendívil Duarte Airport in Ayacucho, where on Thursday eight people died and 52 others were wounded, according to the Regional Health Directorate. A ninth fatality was added later.
MILITARY EXPLANATIONS The head of the Joint Command of the Armed Forces, General Manuel Gomez de la Torre Aranibar, and the head of the Intelligence Division of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the Armed Forces, Brigadier General Ruben Castañeda Layseca, have appeared to justify the use of force in Ayacucho with the argument that the attack on the airport was coordinated by «vandals» to prevent the deployment of the forces of law and order.
According to the autopsies of the dead victims, most of them died from gunshot wounds to the thorax and stomach, despite the fact that the regulations for the use of force of the Armed Forces prohibit the indiscriminate use of firearms.
General Gomez has described those who came out to protest as «bad Peruvians». «As you have been able to experience the situation, since a few days ago, bad, very bad Peruvians, have tried to generate chaos in our beloved Peru,» he said. «We have been in that space of time, we have suffered attacks both the National Police and the Armed Forces from these bad Peruvians,» he justified.
The military has not explained why people who were outside the compound were hit by bullets. «Why did they try to take over the Ayacucho airport? Because it is very critical. It serves to carry personnel who are reinforcing the security and control of both the National Police and the Armed Forces», asserted Castañeda.
«There are some radical groups that take advantage of the social gaps of our population to deceive them and manifest or lead them to their bad intentions,» he said.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
