Thousands of protesters took to the streets of Peru’s capital and were met with volleys of tear gas and grenades amid clashes with security forces just hours after President Dino Boluarte called for a “ceasefire” in nearly two months of protests.
Tuesday’s anti-government protest was the largest – and most violent – since last Thursday, when large groups of people, many from remote Andean regions, descended on the capital to demand Boluarte’s resignation, snap elections and the dissolution of Congress.
Before last week, most of the large anti-government protests that followed the ouster of President Pedro Castillo took place in remote regions of Peru, mostly in the country’s south, exposing deep divisions between residents of the capital and the long-neglected countryside.
The crisis that has sparked Peru’s worst political violence in more than two decades began when Castillo, Peru’s first leader from the rural Andes, tried to stop a third impeachment of his young administration by ordering the dissolution of Congress on December 7.
Instead, lawmakers impeached him, national police arrested him before he could find refuge, and Boluarte, who was his vice president, was sworn in.
Since then, 56 people have died in unrest involving Castillo’s supporters, 45 of whom died in direct clashes with security forces, according to Peru’s ombudsman. None of the deaths were in Lima.