International
As Peru unrest ebbs, stranded tourists make way to safety
| By AFP | Carlos Mandujano and Moisés Ávila |
Protests dwindled in intensity in Peru on Saturday and thousands of tourists trapped in the interior boarded planes to escape unrest as President Dina Boluarte again vowed that she would not step down.
Some 4,500 tourists, many of them European and North American, rushed to the international airport in Cusco to catch flights after being stranded much of the week by simmering political unrest.
“By Sunday at the latest, all the stranded tourists will leave,” Tourism and Commerce Minister Luis Fernando Helguero told the Andina state news agency.
The state human rights ombudsman reported 70 roadblocks around the South American nation, and the toll from the unrest rose to 19 dead and 569 injured.
But the minister of defense and the head of the armed forces both said protests were diminishing in intensity.
“We have gradually been recovering normality along the roads, at the airports, in the cities. Normality is returning but it is not yet achieved,” said General Manuel Gomez de la Torre, head of the military joint chiefs of staff.
Defense Minister Alberto Otarola cautioned that “organized violent acts” were aimed at damaging airports, highways, natural gas pipelines and hydroelectric installations.
“The trend is downward. But we remain on alert. The situation of violence hasn’t passed and the crisis goes on,” Otarola said.
‘What is solved by my resignation?’
Boluarte, the lawyer who assumed the reins of the country December 7 after leftist President Pedro Castillo tried to dissolve Congress and rule by decree, only to be ousted and thrown in jail, again insisted that she would not bend to protesters and step down.
“What is solved by my resignation? We will be here, firmly, until Congress determines to bring forward the elections,” Boluarte told Peruvians.
On Friday, House speaker Jose Williams said the vote on the election schedule could be revisited during a forthcoming session of Congress.
In her televised address, Boluarte expressed regret for the protests that swelled across the country and the deaths, most of which came in clashes with security forces including the military, under a state of emergency.
If armed troops were on the streets, “it has been to take care of and protect” Peru’s citizens, Boluarte said, adding that the protests were “overflowing” with violent elements that were coordinated and not spontaneous.
“These groups did not emerge overnight. They had tactically organized to block roads,” she said.
Protesters are calling for the release of Castillo, the resignation of Boluarte and closure of Congress, and immediate general elections.
Initially detained for seven days, Castillo was on Thursday ordered to spend 18 months in pretrial detention.
The leftist former schoolteacher stands accused of rebellion and conspiracy, and could be jailed for up to 10 years if found guilty, according to public prosecutor Alcides Diaz.
Boluarte declared a 30-day nationwide state of emergency and said she wanted to bring forward elections as a way to calm the uproar, but Friday’s measure fell short of passage in Congress.
Tourists in limbo
Several airports have been closed, but the international terminal in Cusco, the gateway city to the jewel of Peruvian tourism, the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu, managed to reopen on Friday, allowing for some 4,500 stranded tourists to begin boarding outbound flights.
Cusco’s airport is the third largest in Peru, and armed soldiers were seen Saturday standing guard outside.
Protesters tried to storm the terminal on Monday, and the airport remained closed for nearly four days.
Good news also came Saturday to some 200 tourists stranded in a town in the deep valley below Machu Picchu. They were able to board a train and travel as far as Piscacucho, where a boulder blocked the railway.
The tourists, many from Europe and North America, then walked two kilometers (a little more than a mile) to where waiting vehicles took them on to Cusco, AFP learned.
Rail service to Machu Picchu had been suspended since Tuesday.
‘Criminal investigation’ needed
Some of the greatest bloodshed of the week occurred Thursday at the airport in Ayacucho, where soldiers protecting the terminal shot at protesters.
Soldiers “found themselves surrounded with the masses closing in,” rights ombudsman Eliana Revollar told AFP.
The army says its soldiers would have first raised their weapons and then fired into the air, but Revollar said shots were fired at protesters and an investigation is warranted.
International
Six killed, including baby, in armed attack near tourist beach in Ecuador
Six people, including a baby girl about two years old, were killed on Sunday in an armed attack near a tourist beach in southwestern Ecuador, police said. The shooting, carried out with rifles, also left three people wounded.
The incident took place in the coastal town of Puerto López, in the province of Manabí, a popular tourist destination known for whale watching. The attack occurred amid a surge of violence over the weekend that left at least nine people dead nationwide, according to local media reports.
“There are six fatalities and three injured,” Colonel William Acurio, the local police commander, told reporters on Sunday. He confirmed that one of the victims was a baby “approximately two years old.”
Authorities have not released further details about the motive behind the attack or whether arrests have been made.
International
Man accused of killing nine in Paramaribo dies by suicide in police custody
The man who killed nine people, including five children, on Saturday night in Paramaribo died by suicide while in custody, Suriname police confirmed in a statement on Monday.
The suspect, identified by the initials D.A., 43, “hanged himself inside a holding cell at the Keizerstraat police station” in the capital, Paramaribo, according to the official report.
Police said the man sustained leg injuries during his arrest and was taken to a hospital before being transferred to the detention facility on Sunday night. Authorities did not provide further details on the circumstances surrounding his death.
International
Winter storm disrupts holiday travel, forcing 1,500 flight cancellations in the U.S.
Airlines canceled around 1,500 flights across the United States during the peak Christmas travel season after warnings of a severe winter storm and forecasts of heavy snowfall in the Midwest and Northeast. An additional 5,900 flights were delayed due to adverse weather conditions.
More than 40 million Americans were under snowstorm warnings or weather advisories one day after Christmas. Meanwhile, another 30 million people faced flood or storm alerts in California, where an atmospheric river triggered intense rainfall.
New York City was bracing for up to 25 centimeters (10 inches) of snow overnight, which would mark its heaviest snowfall in four years. Cold weather was expected to persist through the weekend in the nation’s largest city. According to flight-tracking website FlightAware, airports in the New York area recorded about 850 flight cancellations.
Six killed, including baby, in armed attack near tourist beach in Ecuador
Man accused of killing nine in Paramaribo dies by suicide in police custody
Winter storm disrupts holiday travel, forcing 1,500 flight cancellations in the U.S.
Tec de Monterrey honors one of its students for his contribution to nanotechnology in medicine
Defense Minister commends salvadoran soldier for Central American Cross Country victory
Extension of the state of emergency approved in southern Chile
-
International4 days agoAt Least Eight Dead and 19 Injured in Deadly Bus Crash in Veracruz, Mexico
-
Central America2 days agoHonduras: Zelaya Calls for Mobilization Amid Dispute Over Tegucigalpa Mayoral Race
-
Central America3 days agoGuatemala arrests 92 salvadoran gang members in 2025
-
International4 days agoJair Bolsonaro Hospitalized for Inguinal Hernia Surgery While Serving Sentence for Attempted Coup
-
Central America3 days agoInternational leaders congratulate Honduras’ president-elect Asfura
-
International1 day agoWinter storm disrupts holiday travel, forcing 1,500 flight cancellations in the U.S.
-
International3 hours agoSix killed, including baby, in armed attack near tourist beach in Ecuador
-
International3 hours agoMan accused of killing nine in Paramaribo dies by suicide in police custody