Caught in the Crossfire, Peru Protest Deaths Keep Anger Burning (Reuters - 12/27/2022)

Caught in the Crossfire, Peru Protest Deaths Keep Anger Burning (full article)

By Alexander Villegas

AYACUCHO, Peru (Reuters) - Edgar Prado, 51, a mechanic and driver from the city of Ayacucho in southern Peru, spent most of the day on Dec. 15 in his garage tinkering on his white Toyota Hilux pickup, even as protests began to build in the airport just a block away.

At 5.56 p.m. that day he would suffer a fatal gunshot wound to the chest and by 6.00 a.m. the next morning he would be dead, according to security camera footage reviewed by Reuters and his autopsy, one of ten people killed in the city in the bloodiest violence that has roiled Peru in recent weeks.

The protests, the worst in years even in tumultuous Peru, have seen twenty-two people killed, the youngest just fifteen. The deaths threaten to keep anger fired up despite a lull in violence over the festive period in the heavily Catholic country.

The clashes with the Dec. 7 ouster of former president Pedro Castillo after he tried to illegally dissolve Congress to avoid an impeachment vote he feared losing. He was voted out of office shortly after and arrested for alleged "rebellion". He denies the charges.

His arrest triggered an outpouring of anger at the country's political elite and Congress, widely reviled as corrupt and self-serving, especially in Peru's poor southern mining regions where rising food and energy costs have hit people hard.

As new President Dina Boluarte tried to stem the protests, which saw blockades of highways, buildings set on fire and airports invaded, the government declared a nationwide state of emergency on Dec. 14, curtailing some civic rights and allowing the armed forces to support the police maintaining public order. (more)

Tags: #Peru #Ayacucho #Protests #Deaths

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