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At least five people were killed, allegedly protesters from coca growers, and 22 were injured in riots near the Bolivian city of Cochabamba , where serious clashes with the Police and the Armed Forces of Bolivia were reported, an official source reported.

The representative in Cochabamba of the Ombudsman of Bolivia, Nelson Cox, said that "we sadly have five (dead) in Sacaba."

Cox said the bodies are of protesters and were taken to the Mexico hospital in Sacaba, a neighboring city of Cochabamba, "with gunshot wounds", and died before arriving.

He argued that the joint police and military forces carried out a "disproportionate" action before the demonstration, which in previous days already recorded gunshot wounds among those protesting.

The official said that the injured were evacuated to several health centers, the most serious to the Viedma hospital in Cochabamba.

In addition, he said that the security forces at the checkpoints did not let ambulances carry injured.

"I have been urging every day to avoid mobilizations, not only that they are not violent, but to avoid mobilizations," he said.

Since Sunday there has been "an escalation of interventions by the joint, police and Armed Forces that have disproportionately had their interventions," he concluded.

A report of injuries in health centers in Sacaba explained that there were at least 22.

For its part, the Bolivian Police reported on Twitter that the police "were attacked with lethal weapons and improvised firearms on the Huayllani Bridge", between the cities of Cochabamba and Sacaba.

A military vehicle "received firearm impacts," a fact under investigation, police said in another message.

One of the joint forces officers told television networks that protesters were using "dynamite and lethal weaponry."

The military said he was "alarmed" by the reports he received, since he had collected ammunition from Mauser 165 rifles, apparently the coca growers used and that neither the Police nor the Armed Forces possess.

"We presume that in the second row they have shot and injured their same partners," he said in reference to the protesters.

The clashes occurred when a large number of coca growers from the Tropic of Cochabamba tried to enter the city, where law enforcement had installed access controls.

The protesters apparently have La Paz as their final destination to support marches in favor of Evo Morales, who resigned from power last Sunday and is isolated in Mexico.

Images on social networks showed the bodies of four of the dead, the transfer of the wounded and the fighting, in which law enforcement officials used tear gas to disperse the protesters.

According to local media, during the riots the security forces seized dynamite, shotguns and Molotov cocktails.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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