Peru adds 48 deaths after the death of a protester in Cusco is confirmed

A citizen identified as Remo Candia Guevara died this Wednesday in Peru after days of protests in the southern region of Cusco, bringing the death toll to 48, official sources confirmed today.

The 50-year-old man, a leader of the Anansaya Urinsaya Ccollana peasant community in the province of Anta, had been admitted to the Antonio Lorena Hospital with a gunshot wound to the thorax, where he died.

According to what the regional health manager of Cusco, Abel Paucarmayta, told the newspaper La República, Candia Guevara died at 8:50 p.m. “from a gunshot wound”, even though he had been operated on in the intensive care unit of the hospital.

“So much pain, rage and impotence!”, expressed for her part through Twitter the leftist legislator Ruth Luque, who questioned that “while the Government of (Peruvian President) @DinaErcilia (Boluarte) asks for dialogue, they impose deaths, massacre”.

Candia Guevara was among the 34 people admitted with various injuries to different health facilities in the region after the demonstrations, according to a statement from the Regional Health Management of Cusco.

It was learned that a group of demonstrators confronted elements of the National Police on 28 de Julio Avenue, in the Cusco district of Wanchaq, when they were trying to reach the Alejandro Velasco Astete International Airport.

The police officers tried to prevent the demonstrators from advancing, but they responded by throwing stones and other objects, causing a fight that initially left 28 civilians and six policemen wounded.

As reported to Radio Programas del Perú by the Prosecutor of Crime Prevention of Cusco, Eduardo Paulette Barbieri, so far, eight people have been arrested for this day of violent protests.

However, he clarified to the citizens that they could demonstrate peacefully.

Peru has had 48 deaths since the demonstrations began last December, with the primary demand being the resignation of President Dina Boluarte’s resignation and the closure of Congress and early elections.

The demonstrations, which have turned violent in some cases, are mainly registered in localities of departments in the south of the country, among them Apurimac, Ayacucho, Arequipa, Cusco, and Tacna.

For these deaths, the Public Prosecutor’s Office opened on Tuesday a preliminary investigation against Boluarte and against several of his officials, among them Prime Minister Alberto Otárola, “for the alleged crimes of genocide, aggravated homicide and serious injuries”.

In this context, the Public Prosecutor’s Office requested information this Wednesday from the Presidency of the Council of Ministers and the Defense and Interior Ministries, on the “acts of violence in the protests of December 2022 and January 2023”.