Written by Julie Turkewitz Beyond the burning tires and roadblocks guarded by angry protesters, after the justice palace had been set on fire and the military had been sent to intervene, a funeral was underway. In a white coffin draped in the flag of Peru, the body of Clemer Fabricio Rojas, 22, traveled down the road Saturday in a crowd so thick that it seemed to float. His mother wailed. And then, just as the coffin passed an intersection, a second one was borne down the cross street, this one holding the body of Christopher Michael Ramos, just 15. “Justice!” the mourners shouted. Peru is reeling from mass protest more than a week after Pedro Castillo, the country’s first leftist president in more than a generation, tried to dissolve Congress and rule by decree, setting off a dizzying drama that resulted in his arrest and the installment of his vice president as the new executive. The protests, by supporters of Castillo’s, have led to confrontations with police and the military that have left at least 25 dead, hundreds injured and a country deeply divided over the mandate of the new president, Dina Boluarte, a former ally of Castillo’s. Peru remains in a state of emergency, with many civil liberties suspended and the military and police charged with enforcing a curfew in parts of the country. In few places are the tensions more evident than in Ayacucho, an overwhelmingly poor, largely rural department far from the capital that on Thursday was the scene of a brutal encounter between protesters and the military. It left nine people dead, including Rojas and Ramos. In an interview, the local head of the ombudsman’s office, David Pacheco-Villar, said that after a group headed toward the airport, probably in an attempt to use it as a seat of protest, soldiers responded with “disproportionate use of force,” launching an hourslong siege on the airport and surrounding neighborhoods. Pacheco-Villar confirmed that at least two videos circulating on social media show soldiers pointing their weapons at body level, while at least one other video shows the military dropping what seem to be tear-gas canisters from helicopters. Other videos from the day show protesters throwing rocks and perhaps using slingshots. Pacheco-Villar said that he had not seen evidence that any civilians had guns but that the prosecutor’s office would investigate what happened Thursday.
