Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD: After a two-week break, Peruvians took to the streets again on Wednesday, blocking roads to demand President Dina Boluarte’s resignation, who came into power after her ousted predecessor in December.
Protestors made use of burning tires and stones to barricade main routes in the southern regions of Cusco, Puno, Arequipa, and Apurimac, and in the center, Junin, chanting for Boluarte to leave.
The rights ombudsman said in a statement that the protests affected 30 of the country’s 195 provinces.
In the capital city downtown Lima, police used tear gas to disperse thousands of demonstrators trying to reach the congress, while some journalists were also injured in the scuffles.
Tear gas was also used to disperse hundreds of protesters in Arequipa.
Boluarte took over on 7 December as the South American country’s first woman president after the impeachment and arrest of Pedro Castillo who unsuccessfully tried to dissolve Congress and rule by decree.
Castillo, a leftist former rural school teacher and union leader, faced fervent opposition from Congress during his eighteen-month period in office and had been the subject of a number of criminal investigations into allegations of widespread corruption.
Protests rock the country, claim 22 lives
His ouster sparked countrywide protests, with the ombudsman reporting twenty-two people killed in clashes and over 600 injured.
Boluarte’s government declared a thirty-day nationwide state of emergency, while she struggled to calm the uproar by trying to bring forward elections.
The demonstrations died down during the Christmas holiday period, but by Wednesday had remobilized.
