The natives attacked a camp with "spears"
3 dead in Peru during clashes due to the "Corona" outbreak
Funeral staff during the burial of a victim of "Corona" in a village in Peru. A.F.B.
An angry group of indigenous people in Peru with spears attacked an oil company camp in the Amazon, in protest against pollution and the spread of the new Corona virus (Covid-19), killing three of them after a clash with the police, according to what the government announced.
And after being overwhelmed by the frustration of oil spills and government neglect during the outbreak of the Corona virus, according to their claim, about 70 indigenous people tried to storm the camp of an oil company, in an attempt to stop work at its well in the remote town of Britana in the Loreto region.
The indigenous people complain that this well, operated by a Canadian company, polluted their lands through a series of oil spills.
The company said after the clash that it had halted work at the site, where there are about 100 people.
And the Peruvian Interior Minister, Jorge Montoya, announced that the clash resulted in the death of three indigenous people, in addition to the wounding of six policemen and 11 residents. Montoya indicated that a government delegation had been sent to the Loreto region, in an attempt to calm things down.
The organization "Urbio", which represents the indigenous people in the Peruvian part of the Amazon, said that the police shot first, caused chaos at midnight, and ended up shooting each other. “The indigenous people did not have firearms,” she said in a statement. They only carried spears as a defense tool inherited from the ancestors. ”
The epidemic took a heavy toll on the poor indigenous peoples of the Peruvian Amazon region.
The authorities estimate that in Iquitos, for example, which is the main city in the Peruvian Amazon region, every seven out of 10 people are infected with the Coronavirus.