International
Peru closes Machu Picchu as protesters arrested in Lima
January 22 | By AFP |
Peru closed the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu Saturday amid steady anti-government protests, stranding hundreds of tourists for hours, as authorities expelled protesters from a Lima university where they have been holed up as part of the crisis engulfing this divided country.
Protests demanding the resignation of Peruvian President Dina Boluarte have been ongoing since early December, leaving 46 people dead and prompting the government to impose a state of emergency in violence-hit areas.
This crisis triggered by the ouster of leftist Indigenous president Pedro Castillo last month stems largely from a gaping inequity between Peru’s urban elite and poor rural Indigenous people in the Andean region who saw him as one of their own and working to make their lives better.
Authorities announced Saturday yet another protester had died following demonstrations Friday in the town of Ilave in that Andean region in the south.
Video footage from Ilave that went viral on social media shows police shooting right at a crowd of Indigenous demonstrators in the town square. Enraged protesters responded by setting fire to a police station, local media reported.
Clashes between police and the crowd in that town near Lake Titicaca and the border with Bolivia left 10 people injured, hospital officials said.
Prior to the closing of Machu Picchu, rail services to the site had already been suspended due to damage to the track by demonstrators. The only way to get up to the popular tourist site is by train.
At least 400 people, including 300 foreigners, were stranded at the foot of the site, in the town of Aguas Calientes, and pleading to be evacuated.
Rescue teams later evacuated 418 tourists, the Tourism Ministry said in a Twitter post accompanied by pictures of a train and seated travelers.
“The closure of the Inca trails network and the Machu Picchu citadel has been ordered due to the social situation and to preserve the safety of visitors,” the Ministry of Culture said in a Saturday statement.
Tourism is vital for Peru’s economy, representing between three to four percent of the country’s GDP.
‘I’m worried’
In Lima, where two days of mass mobilization by demonstrators from the country’s poor Andean region had seemingly concluded, the situation Saturday remained tense.
As night fell hundreds more protesters gathered in the city, mainly around the Congress building.
During the day security forces used an armored vehicle to breach the gate of the University of San Marcos in the city’s downtown, in an attempt to expel protesters who have been sleeping there.
A large contingent of police searched occupants, sometimes forcing them to lie on the ground, AFP journalists observed.
Interior Minister Vicente Romero Canal N television that police intervened after university authorities said some of the squatters were committing crimes. He did not specify what these were.
Around 200 people were arrested, said Alfonso Barrenechea, a spokesman for the prosecutor’s office.
Protesters are trying to keep up pressure on the Peruvian government, defying a state of emergency that now covers almost one-third of the country.
The European Union on Saturday condemned the chaos and the “very large number of casualties,” calling for a peaceful political solution in Peru.
The protests were sparked when former president Castillo, a rural schoolteacher, was removed from office and arrested on December 7 after attempting to dissolve the country’s legislature and rule by decree, amid multiple corruption investigations.
Among the 46 dead since the protests began, 45 were protesters and one was a police officer.
International
Pope Francis meets former Gaza hostages
Pope Francis met on Thursday at the Vatican with 16 Israelis who had been held hostage in Gaza for months by the Islamist group Hamas, according to the official Vatican news website.
The group consisted of ten women, four men, and two children, as reported by the same source. Several of the former hostages showed the Argentine pontiff banners or photos of their loved ones who remain in captivity.
Francis had previously met with the families of hostages in April this year and November 2023, but this was the first time he had met with individuals who had personally endured captivity.
Since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began, the pope has repeatedly called for the immediate release of Israeli hostages, while also condemning the suffering of the Palestinian population.
The war erupted on October 7, 2023, when Islamist militants attacked southern Israel, killing 1,206 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapping 251, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures that include hostages who died in captivity.
Of the kidnapped, 97 are still being held in Gaza, but the Israeli military estimates that 34 of them have died.
The military offensive launched by Israel in response has killed at least 43,736 people in the Gaza Strip, mostly civilians, according to data from the Ministry of Health in the Hamas-governed territory.
International
Israeli airstrikes on Damascus kill 15 and injure 16, including women and children
Israeli forces carried out airstrikes on residential buildings in the Syrian capital, Damascus, and its surroundings on Thursday, resulting in at least 15 deaths and 16 injuries, according to Syria’s Ministry of Defense and state television.
The ministry stated that around 3:20 p.m. local time (12:20 GMT), the Israeli military launched an aerial attack from the direction of the occupied Golan Heights, targeting several residential buildings in the Mazzeh neighborhood in western Damascus and the Qudsaya suburb to the northwest of the capital.
The airstrikes “resulted in the death of 15 people and injuries to 16 others, including women and children,” based on initial estimates, in addition to significant damage to private property and civilian buildings, the ministry added.
Meanwhile, state television reported Israeli airstrikes on three buildings in Mazzeh and another on a building in an educational complex located in a residential area of Qudsaya.
Following the strikes, loud explosions were heard throughout the city, and thick plumes of smoke could be seen rising from the targeted locations. Ambulances and emergency services rushed to the scene to attend to the victims.
International
Drug trafficker dies after boat collision with Guardia Civil Vessel in Sanlúca
Three people were on the boat that collided with a Guardia Civil vessel around midnight at the mouth of the Guadalquivir River in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, near the Andalusian city of Cádiz, a spokesperson for the Civil Guard reported.
Two officers sustained “contusions,” the spokesperson explained.
The drug traffickers managed to bring the boat to shore, where one of them was “abandoned” severely injured. The other two fled.
The Civil Guard officers attempted to resuscitate the victim before transporting him to Sanlúcar de Barrameda, but he ultimately died early in the morning.
The other two suspects took advantage of the officers’ absence while they were taking the victim and returned to set their boat on fire.
The collision occurred very close to the site of another accident on September 1, where a drug trafficker died following a Guardia Civil pursuit.
The suspects’ boat traveled “400 meters” before crashing head-on and “at full speed” into the riverbank, where a hundred bundles of hashish were found.
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