LIMA, Peru (AP) Jan,11– A police officer patrolling the Puno region of Peru was attacked and burned by protesters. The death toll in the demonstrations following the ouster of former president Pedro Castillo rose to his 47, officials said Tuesday.
Jose Luis Sonco Quispe, 29, was on patrol with his colleagues Monday night in Juliaca, a town near the border with Bolivia and Lake Titicaca, when a mob later set fire to a car. According to police reports, the .
Ronald Villasante Toke, Sonko’s partner in the police car, said the man was reportedly “arrested and physically assaulted by about 350 protesters.”
Villasante was taken to a hospital in Lima after being beaten with multiple head injuries. He said he doesn’t know what happened to his partner. Prime Minister Alberto Otarola confirmed Sonko’s death at a parliamentary session, saying the man was attacked by protesters.
“Police arrived at the scene and found one of his officers beaten and tied up and another of his, Luis Sonko, his Quispe sadly dead.” was burned alive in a police car.”
Otarora has announced a three-day curfew starting at 8 p.m. Until 4am in Puno, Wednesdays are Memorial Day.
Since protests began in early December following Mr Castillo’s dismissal, 39 civilians have died in clashes with police and seven more in road accidents, according to Peru’s Ombudsman’s Office.
The police officer’s death comes after 17 people were killed in Juliaca on Monday as protests resumed calling for immediate elections in neglected rural areas of the country still loyal to Castillo. The riots began after Castillo’s expulsion and arrest following a widely condemned attempt to dissolve Congress and prevent his own impeachment.
Castillo’s successor and former vice-presidential candidate Dina Volarte backs his plan to postpone the 2026 presidential and congressional elections to 2024. She also expressed her support for her judicial investigation into whether security forces used excessive force.
But such moves have so far failed to quell unrest, and after a brief lull around the Christmas and New Year holidays, support for Castillo’s unorthodox rule was strongest in Peru.
Castillo, a political novice who lived in his two-story dirt house in the Andean highlands before moving to the presidential palace, won the 2021 election by a narrow margin, rocking Peru’s political system and leaving Lima and the capital It has exposed deep divisions among Lima’s inhabitants. Countryside for the first time in a while.
