The European Union added its voice Monday to calls for calm after nearly two weeks of protests prompted by the ouster of leftist ex-president Pedro Castillo.
Security officials say 21 people have died in clashes since Castillo was abruptly removed from power and arrested early this month after seeking to dissolve Congress to rule by decree.
His impeachment and detention drew criticism from leftist Latin American allies including Mexico, as well as from thousands of supporters who took to the streets to demand his release.
A subsequent security clampdown, including the deployment of armed soldiers during a state of emergency declared under Castillo’s successor Dina Boluarte, has killed several protesters.
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“The EU condemns any use of violence and any excessive use of force,” the bloc said in a statement Monday.
It expressed concern about “reports that more than two dozen civilians have been killed so far, some of them by firearms, and many more injured during recent protests.”
The EU called for a “spirit of dialogue and cooperation to stop violence.”
In addition to the deaths, the repression of demonstrations has also left 646 people injured, including 290 policemen, according to the office of Peru’s human rights ombudsman.
On Sunday, the US State Department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken had spoken to Boluarte, urging the new president to pursue reforms and “focus on reconciliation.”
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Castillo, a former rural school teacher and union leader, unexpectedly took power from Peru’s traditional political elite in elections last year.
He immediately came under fire, surviving two early impeachment bids, and soon also found himself in the cross-hairs of prosecutors looking into numerous graft claims.
He is the subject of six separate criminal investigations.
Castillo’s short term was plagued by instability, with three prime ministers and seven interior ministers coming and going in just over a year.
Opinion polls revealed massive public disapproval of Castillo’s management of the country, but thousands nevertheless spilled onto the streets when he was arrested.
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‘Criminal organization’
By Monday, the protests appeared to be waning, with smaller groups gathered calmly in several parts of the country, waving signs denouncing Boluarte as a “killer” and demanding her resignation.
They also want elections scheduled for 2026 to be brought forward to next year — a measure that lawmakers will consider this week.
Demonstrations have shaken the country since Castillo’s impeachment on December 7, with roadblocks and airport disruptions and thousands of tourists left stranded.
Operations at the airport of Arequipa, Peru’s second busiest, resumed Monday after a week of closure due to protesters obstructing the runway with stones, sticks and burning tires.
Neighbor Chile announced, meanwhile, that a chartered plane would evacuate stranded visitors to the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu to Lima.
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Castillo is being held in pre-trial detention on charges of rebellion and conspiracy.
Boluarte, who was Castillo’s vice president and took over after he was impeached, said Sunday that Mexico had offered asylum to Castillo’s graft-accused family.
Speaking on the Panorama TV program, she did not specify whether the family members — Castillo’s wife, two children and sister-in-law — have left the country.
Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador and fellow leftist leaders of Bolivia, Argentina and Colombia have all expressed support for Castillo.
Prosecutors have accused Castillo’s wife, Lilia Paredes, of criminal conspiracy and money laundering as part of an alleged graft network headed by her husband.
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The “criminal organization” Castillo stands accused of running is alleged to have handed out public contracts in exchange for kickbacks.
Paredes’s sister Yenifer is also accused in the alleged plot.
The country is no stranger to instability: it had three different presidents in five days in 2020, and now six presidents since 2016.
Six of Peru’s last seven presidents were investigated or prosecuted after their terms came to an end.
The Pope’s funeral procession through the center of Rome worries the Italian authorities
The complexity of the transfer of Pope Francis’ coffin through the center of Rome, from St. Peter’s Vatican to the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, where he will be buried, is the main concern for the Italian authorities, the head of Civil Protection, Fabio Ciciliano, acknowledged on Thursday.
That part of the device, which will take place on Saturday after the funeral, presents important logistical, infrastructure and security challenges, the official admitted at a press conference, in which he also said that the number of faithful who will pass through the burning chapel before, about 61,000, will increase in the coming hours.
On Saturday, after the funeral, his body will be taken in a vehicle in a solemn passage to the Roman basilica of Santa María La Mayor, to be buried in a chapel, as the Argentine pontiff arranged in life, which will collapse the center of the Italian capital.
“I remember that the burial ceremony will be a private ceremony, while immediately after the faithful will be given the opportunity to reach the side of their holiness, and obviously the sustained concentration of faithful must be taken into great consideration,” said Ciciliano.
The route of this funeral procession, which will extend over six kilometers, will be analyzed today in a meeting by those responsible for the organization, who are carrying out a “complete evaluation”.
Ciciliano focused on the exceptional fact that Francisco’s death has coincided with the Jubilee year, and that this is also a time when Rome is usually full of tourists, so it is difficult to estimate the number of people who will attend to follow the funeral.
Despite warning that parallels cannot be established with the death of John Paul II in 2005, Ciciliano reiterated that “we are estimating around 200,000 people, although we do not know if they will be deployed in St. Peter’s Square or along the funeral procession” to Santa María la Mayor.
Meanwhile, the number of faithful who will pass through the burning chapel of Pope Francis, which until 1:00 p.m. this Thursday already amounted to 61,000, will rise significantly in the next few hours, until Friday it closes at 19.00 (17.00 GMT) for the ceremony of closing the coffin before the funeral on Saturday, he anticipated.
The person in charge drew attention to the significant drop in temperatures at night, so he called on the faithful to dress like “an onion” to be able to add or remove layers as needed.
Regarding the arrival of new faithful in Rome, he said that there are 260,000 seats available to travel by train, and that on the day of the funeral about 500 buses to the Italian capital are expected to arrive.
“There will be state, commercial and private flights that will arrive at Fiumicino and Ciampino airports. We have also maintained Pratica di Mare as an airfield,” he added.
He also referred to the reception of the hundreds of world leaders and authorities who will be in Rome to attend the funeral, including the president of the United States or the kings of Spain, which he considered “very complex.”
The preparations “are being developed in close collaboration with the Prefecture of Rome for those aspects related to security, since there are elements that overlap,” he said.
This difficulty grows due to the fact that after the funerals most of these leaders will return immediately, but others prefer to stay in the city.
After the funeral, the second phase of the Civil Protection deployment will be activated, which includes the conclave to elect the new pope, when the forecasts point to an even greater number of faithful, which will also coincide with other massive events such as the final of the Soccer Cup on May 14.
A group of the poor and a delegation of migrants will participate in the funeral and burial of the pope on Saturday
A group of poor and needy and a delegation of migrants and rescuers will be present at the funeral and burial of Pope Francis this Saturday, April 26, as a last tribute to the pontiff, who was always close to the most disadvantaged and homeless people.
“A group of poor and needy people will be present on the steps that lead to the Papal Basilica of Santa María la Mayor to pay the last tribute to Pope Francis before the burial of the coffin,” the Vatican reported in a statement on Thursday.
The Arab League supports Hamas handing over control of Gaza and weapons to the Palestinian Authority
The Arab League expressed on Thursday its support for the Hamas Islamist group handing over control of the Gaza Strip to the Government of the Palestinian National Authority (ANPA), of President Mahmud Abbas, who assured that he must be the only one who controls weapons and represents the Palestinians before the international community.
The pan-Arab organization expressed its position on Thursday in a statement issued after the Arab ministerial meeting held on Wednesday at the headquarters of the Arab League in Cairo, coinciding with a claim by Abbas that the ANP assumes political control of Gaza, and that Hamas releases the 59 Israeli hostages it still holds and lay down their arms.
“The Council of the Arab League affirmed its support for President Mahmoud Abbas’ vision regarding the importance of achieving national (Palestinian) unity based on the commitment to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO),” the main member of the ANP that governs in small areas of the occupied West Bank, said the statement of the organization composed of 22 states.
In the note, the agency avoided mentioning Hamas by name, although it stressed that the PLO is the “only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people”, and invited all Palestinian factions to “comply with the political program and international obligations” of the ANP.
He also insisted that the different Palestinian factions “comply with the principle of a (only) system (of government), a law and a legitimate weapon, and allow the Government (of the ANP) to assume the responsibilities of governance in Gaza within the framework of the political and geographical unity of the Palestinian territory occupied (by Israel) in 1967”.
On the other hand, the statement “categorically rejected any form of displacement of the Palestinian people from their land, under any name, circumstance or justification, considering this part of the crime of genocide” against the inhabitants of the strip, where more than 51,000 people died in Israeli attacks since October 2023.
The Arab Foreign Ministers expressed, on the other hand, their support for the conference that France and Saudi Arabia plan to hold next June under the auspices of the UN to support the “two-state solution”, one Palestinian next to the Israeli.
They also showed their support for the Egyptian plan, supported last March by Arab and Islamic countries, for the reconstruction of Gaza, and “urging countries and financial institutions to quickly provide the financial support necessary for its implementation.”
Hamas has controlled Gaza since its militiamen expelled the forces of the ANP Government from the Strip in 2007, controlled by the secular group Fatah, also from Abbas and majority within the PLO.
The enmity between Hamas and Fatah resides, in addition to ideological differences, in the discrepancies that when facing the defense of a Palestinian State, since while Islamists advocate armed struggle and “resistance” against the Israeli occupation, the ANP opts for politics and negotiations.
