LIMA: Peruvian police arrested over 200 people accused of illegally entering the campus of a major Lima university, while authorities in Cusco shut the Incan citadel of Machu Picchu and the Inca trail as deadly anti-government protests spread nationwide.
Dozens of Peruvians were injured after tensions flared again on Friday as police clashed with protesters, with security forces in capital city Lima using tear gas to repel demonstrators throwing glass bottles and stones, as fires burned in the streets.
Some 46 people have been killed in the weeks-long clashes and another nine in traffic accidents related to the barricades set up amid the protests. Alfonso Barrenechea, with the crime prevention division of the prosecutor’s office, told local radio station RPP that arrested 205 people at the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos for illegally trespassing on the university’s premises and for allegedly stealing electronic goods. –Agencies
