Six soldiers drowned in a river as they tried to escape protesters who attacked them with stones in the Puno region of Peru, the epicenter of protests once morest the government that replaced imprisoned ex-president Pedro Castillo in December.
The Ministry of Defense reported on Monday the discovery of the six members of the patrol that disappeared on Sunday in the mighty and icy waters of the Ilave River, a tributary of Lake Titicaca (3,800 meters above sea level), on the southern border with Bolivia.
On Sunday night the authorities had rescued a first soldier who died in the river, quoted AFP.
“With the location of the remains of Army Corporal Carlos Quispe Montalico, the search and rescue work that began following the unfortunate events that occurred in the Ilave River was completed. Honor and glory to our brave soldier and his five companions!” the ministry said. of Defense on Twitter.
General Jhony León, head of the Southern Military Region, said that his men were attacked by “the population” while they were crossing the river.
In a video from the Defense portfolio, 15 soldiers are seen sitting in a circle and wrapped in blankets, reporting to a superior.
“We crossed the river (…) because we had no other escape anywhere. There were between 800 and 900 people who surrounded us and began to throw stones at us (…) People called us corrupt and murderers,” the soldier narrated. Vilca.
According to his version, the military tried to make a human chain, but they were swept away by the waters: “That was when the current took us and some of the troops began to drown there,” added the military.
Within the framework of the political crisis that triggered the fall of Castillo on December 7, 54 people have died, including the six soldiers in Puno, amid protests and clashes with the public force.
According to the Ombudsman’s Office, there have also been 1,300 injuries, almost half of them in uniform.
“Stoned in the River”
On Sunday, the El Collao Health Network, in Puno, assured that it received five soldiers with hypothermia who had been rescued by the residents when they were drowning.
The military assure that they were fleeing from demonstrators who attacked them with slingshots and sticks in the framework of peasant protests once morest the government of Dina Boluarte.
“When they reached the river, they were pressured and stoned in the same river. We are intervening in that place without causing the greatest impact. The Armed Forces have taken over the Puno region,” General León declared on television channel N.
The patrol was moving from Ilave to the city of Juli, also in Puno, where clashes broke out on Saturday that left at least 16 civilians and soldiers injured and a police station set on fire.
Boluarte celebrates three months in power on March 7 following replacing Castillo as vice president. The former president, who was being investigated for alleged corruption, was separated from the presidency accused of a failed coup.
A 53-year-old rural teacher and union leader, Castillo is serving 18 months in preventive detention in the Barbadillo prison, a mini-prison for ex-presidents, inside the headquarters of the Special Operations Directorate of the Police, east of Lima.
Elected for a five-year term, the former president had been in office for 17 months when he was removed. His fall sparked violent protests demanding the resignation of Boluarte, the closure of Congress and the advancement of the elections to 2023.
With Castillo, there are four presidents who have been removed by the Peruvian legislature since 2018, which has plunged the country into its longest period of instability in recent times.
Peru / With information AFP
