Dozens of people have died in southern Peru in clashes between protesters and government forces since early December, including at least 17 civilians and one police officer who were killed Monday in the city of Juliaca, near the border with Bolivia.
It was part of an extraordinary spasm of violence that further complicated the new president’s attempt to stabilize the country after weeks of demonstrations. The Monday killings according to Times, drew widespread condemnation of the Peruvian security forces, which appeared to be responsible for most of the deaths and have been accused by protesters and human rights groups of using lethal force indiscriminately against civilians.
Monday’s events were the deadliest single clash between civilians and armed personnel in Peru in at least two decades, when the country emerged from a dictatorship as well as from a long and brutal fight with a violent guerrilla group, a conflict that left at least 70,000 people dead, many of them civilians.
After the country’s leftist president, Pedro Castillo, attempted to dissolve Congress and rule by decree, he was arrested and replaced by his vice president. His supporters, many of them living in impoverished rural regions, quickly took to the streets to demand new general elections.
“What happened yesterday was really a massacre,” one human rights activist said.
