LIMA (Dispatches) -- Lima and other Peruvian regions were under a renewed state of emergency even as opponents of President Dina Boluarte began mobilizing toward the capital ahead of a major demonstration Monday, the latest in weeks of deadly unrest.
At least 42 people have died, according to Peru’s human rights ombudsman, in five weeks of clashes at burning roadblocks and other flashpoints to demand fresh elections and Boluarte’s resignation.
She took over on December 7 as the South American country’s first woman president following the impeachment and arrest of leftist Pedro Castillo in what his supporter characterize as an orchestrate coup.
On Sunday some 3,000 protesters in Andahuaylas in southeastern Peru began boarding trucks and buses bound for the demonstration in Lima, RPP radio reported.
The government extended by 30 days a state of emergency from midnight Saturday for Lima, Cusco, Callao and Puno, authorizing the military to back up police actions.
The state of emergency also suspended constitutional rights such as freedom of movement and assembly, according to a decree published in the official gazette.
In protest epicenter Puno, the government declared a new night-time curfew for 10 days, from 8:00 pm to 4:00 am.
Dozens of demonstrators had arrived in Lima’s Miraflores district late Saturday as part of a mobilization for what they called a “takeover of the city.”
Almost 100 stretches of road remained blockaded Sunday in 10 of Peru’s 25 regions -- a record, according to a senior land transport official.
The ouster of Castillo, a former rural school teacher and union leader, sparked immediate nationwide protests, mainly among the rural poor, that petered out over the holiday period but resumed on January 4.
In the run-up to Monday’s demonstrations, attitudes among both protesters and government officials appeared to harden.
“We ask that Dina Boluarte resign as president and that Congress be shut down. We don’t want any more deaths,” Jasmin Reinoso, a 25-year-old nurse from Ayacucho, told AFP.
Earlier in the day, some 500 Peruvians, including several dozen police officers, attended a mass in Lima’s central cathedral for fallen protesters, as well as for a policeman burnt alive in the southern city of Juliaca.
Many of the mourners wore white T-shirts to symbolize peace and bore photographs of the dead.
An Ipsos poll published Sunday said Boluarte had a 71 percent disapproval rating.
More than 100 Peruvian, Argentine and Chilean intellectuals, meanwhile, urged Boluarte in an open letter Saturday to “stop the massacre of citizens who exercise their legitimate right” to protest.