Castillo was removed from office by parliament last Wednesday for “moral incompetence” and later arrested, and his deputy Dina Boluarte was appointed the new president. In view of the protests against the change of power, she announced on Sunday that she wanted to bring forward the parliamentary elections, which were actually planned for 2026, to April 2024. In addition, she imposed a state of emergency on the regions particularly affected by the protests.
Despite this, the protests continued on Monday. Four people were killed in the province of Apurímac in the south of the country after two demonstrators died there on Sunday in clashes with security forces. Another protester was killed in clashes with police in Peru’s second-largest city, Arequipa, on Monday. “There have been a total of seven deaths since Sunday,” the AFP news agency learned from official circles.
In Arequipa, around 2,000 demonstrators paralyzed the airport. As an AFP photographer reported, the demonstrators in the Andean city in the south of the country blocked the runway of the airport with stones, burning tires and wood and damaged the lighting systems.
The ousted Castillo also received support from Mexico, Argentina, Colombia and Bolivia. A joint statement by the left-wing governments of these countries said on Monday that the previous president had been the victim of a “hostile and anti-democratic” movement since he took office last year.
The ex-head of state is currently in custody, and his appeal will be heard in court on Tuesday. Castillo sees himself as a “political prisoner and has also declared this to the public prosecutor’s office,” said his lawyers in the run-up to the court hearing.
