Police in Peru on Thursday opened fire on farm workers blocking a major highway to demand wage increases, killing one in the first labor dispute confronting the country’s new president, a union official said.
“Police came storming in to shoot. It was an act of violence,” labor leader Walter Campos said.
He described the victim as a 19-year-old worker who was shot in the head.
Peruvian President Francisco Sagasti, who took power two weeks ago amid an acute political crisis, confirmed the death and called it a tragedy.
He vowed a probe of the events in the town of Viru, where workers were blocking the Panamerican Highway, the country’s main motorway, which runs north-south through all of Peru.
Farm and factory workers in Viru on Thursday joined a strike and road blockades that were on Monday launched in another region of Peru.
They have cut off several stretches of the highway with branches, stones and burning tires.
The Peruvian Ministry of Health reported 44 people hurt in clashes in the two areas.
The workers want wage increases and the scrapping of an agricultural law they say limits their rights and income.
The law sets daily farm wages at US$11, but does not specify a limit to the workday — just a minimum of four hours.
The strikers want at least US$18 a day and other benefits.
Sagasti took over in the culmination of a crisis in which Peru had three presidents in one week.
It started when then-president Martin Vizcarra was early last month impeached by the Peruvian Congress on charges of corruption.
He was popular and Peruvians were infuriated, taking to the streets in protest against then-Peruvian president Manuel Merino. He resigned a few days later amid an uproar over a deadly police crackdown on those protests.
Congress then chose Sagasti to be president.
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