The Executive's decision comes amid clashes between the Police and the protesters after the arrest of Castillo
The Government of Peru has announced the declaration of emergency in the National Road Network, allowing the Army to take to the streets in an effort to protect the country’s strategic points, including airports, hydroelectric plants and other key infrastructure, such as highways.
“The National Road Network is going to be declared an emergency, to ensure the free transit of all Peruvians,” said Defense Minister Alberto Otárola, upon leaving the Council of State, according to the RPP radio station.
Likewise, he has indicated that “the immediate protection of the Armed Forces of national strategic points has been ordered, an infrastructure that serves to ensure the life of all Peruvians.”
Otárola has also reported the Executive’s decision to declare a state of emergency in the regions of Arequipa and Ica in order to “restore public order.”
“We have declared an emergency today, and it will appear in an extraordinary edition of the Official Gazette of El Peruano, that the departments of Arequipa and Ica join the emergency decreed in Andahuaylas so that the Armed Forces in support of the Police National can take control of internal order,” said the Peruvian Defense Minister.
In this sense, he has admitted that the situation in the country at this time is “serious and worrying” although he has stressed that, with this concern, they have the “constitutional responsibility to preserve the life and integrity of all Peruvians”.
The decision of the Government of Peru takes place in the midst of clashes between the Police and the demonstrators due to the protests that are taking place in the country after the impeachment and arrest of former President Pedro Castillo.
To date, the protests, in which the new Executive is asked to dissolve Congress and call presidential elections, have claimed the lives of at least six people.
