Police violently raid Lima university and shut Machu Picchu amid Peru unrest - The Guardian

ratings of police raided a Lima institution on Saturday, smashing down the gates with an armoured vehicle, firing teargas and detaining more than 200 individuals who had come to the Peruvian capital to take part in anti-executive protests.

images showed dozens of people lying face down on the floor at San Marcos institution after the shock police operation. students observed they were pushed, kicked and hit with truncheons as they were forced out of their dormitories.

The police raid on San Marcos university – the oldest within the Americas – is the newest in a collection of affronts using starting to be requires the president, Dina Boluarte, to step down after six weeks of unrest that has claimed 60 lives, whereas leaving at least 580 injured and more than 500 arrested.

Amid the demonstrations and with roadblocks paralysing a great deal of the country, Peruvian authorities on Saturday ordered the closure "except additional notice" of the Inca fortress of Machu Picchu and the Inca path that results in the realm heritage archeological web page – Peru's largest vacationer appeal which brings in additional than 1,000,000 visitors a year.

Rescue teams on Saturday had evacuated greater than four hundred tourists stranded at the iconic web site, Peru's ministry of tourism noted.

"This afternoon the 418 home and international friends have been transferred from the town of Machu Picchu to … Cusco," the ministry's Twitter account posted, along with photographs of a coach and passengers.

The demonstrations all started in early December in aid of the ousted former president Pedro Castillo however have shifted overwhelmingly to demand Boluarte's resignation, the closure of congress and clean elections.

Boluarte, 60, turned into Castillo's vice-president and replaced him after he tried to shutter congress and rule by means of decree on 7 December.

people detained on the institution of San Marcos campus in Lima. graphic: Juan Mandamiento/AFP/Getty images

lots of those arrested in Saturday's raid had travelled from southern Peru to the capital to take part in an illustration ultimate Thursday labelled the "takeover of Lima" which all started peacefully but descended into running battles between protesters and rebel police amid stone-throwing and swirls of teargas.

In a press release on Twitter, the office of the UN high commissioner for human rights known as on the Peruvian authorities to "be sure the legality and proportionality of the [police] intervention and guarantees of due technique".

It emphasised the significance of the presence of prosecutors, who were absent for the primary hours of the raid.

college students residing in halls of residence spoke of they had been violently compelled out of their rooms by armed police who busted in doorways and used shoves and kicks to eject them.

Esteban Godofredo, a 20-12 months-old political science scholar, turned into given scientific treatment for injuries to his leg.

"He [a police officer] hit me along with his stick and he threw me to the ground and began kicking me," Godofredo talked about as he sat on the grass outside the residence with a closely bruised, bandaged right calf.

Esteban Godofredo, a student, receives medication for injuries to his leg. image: Dan Collyns/The Guardian

video clips viewed through the Guardian showed perplexed and terrified college students massed backyard their halls, some still in pyjamas, as rebellion police shouted orders and insults. young guys had been compelled to face against a wall or kneel in a row.

"They pointed their weapons at us, and shouted: 'Out out.' We didn't even have time to get our IDs," said Jenny Fuentes, 20, a pupil trainer.

"They forced us to kneel. most of the women had been crying but they instructed us to shut up. They didn't inform us why we were being forced out of our rooms."

The community of about 90 students, who had remained on campus all through the summer season holidays to work and study, have been then marched to the leading patio, a ten-minute walk, the place the other americans had been detained.

a few hours after the raid, that they had no longer been allowed to return to their rooms which were being searched by way of police.

objects that Peruvian police mentioned belonged to detained protesters who have been staying on the campus. graphic: Dan Collyns/The Guardian

"I even have been a student at San Marcos [University] and for the reason that the 1980s we have not experienced such an outrage," Susel Paredes, a congresswoman, said as she turned into prevented from entering the campus by means of a police cordon.

"The police have entered the tuition house, the rooms of the female students who had nothing to do with the demonstrators. they have got threatened them and brought them out of their rooms while they have been sleeping."

Paredes stated it become a flashback to regular police and defense force raids on the public institution in the 1980s and 90s, when the campus was considered as a hotbed for subversion right through the state's battle with the Mao-inspired Shining path rebels.

"We don't seem to be in that point, we're supposedly below a democratic government that may still appreciate fundamental rights," Paredes said.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this file

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