Bolivia's growing crisis turns deadly as five killed in clash
Bolivia’s political crisis turned deadly after security forces opened fire on supporters of Evo Morales in a central town, killing at least five people.
The unrest threatens the interim government’s efforts to restore stability following the resignation of the former president in an election dispute.
Most of the dead and injured in Sacaba near the city of Cochabamba suffered bullet wounds, the director of the town’s Mexico Hospital, Guadaberto Lara, said.
He called it the worst violence he’s seen in his 30-year career.
Angry demonstrators and relatives of the victims gathered at the site of the shootings, chanting: "Civil war, now!"
Mr Morales, who was granted asylum in Mexico after his resignation last Sunday, said on Twitter a "massacre" had occurred and he described Bolivia’s government led by interim President Jeanine Anez as a dictatorship.
"Now they are killing our brothers in Sacaba, Cochabamba," he said in another tweet.
Protesters said police fired when demonstrators, including many coca leaf growers who backed Bolivia’s first indigenous president, tried to cross a military checkpoint.
Emeterio Colque Sanchez, a 23-year-old university student, said he saw the dead bodies of several protesters and about two-dozen people rushed to hospitals, many covered in blood.
Families of the victims held a candlelight vigil late on Friday in Sacaba.
A tearful woman put her hand on a wooden casket surrounded by flowers and asked: “Is this what you call democracy? Killing us like nothing?”
Another woman cried and prayed in Quechua over the coffin of Omar Calle, which was draped in the Bolivian national flag and the multicolour Wiphala flag that represents indigenous peoples.
Bolivia’s Ombudsman’s Office said it regretted the deaths during the joint police-military operation and called on the interim government to investigate if the security forces had acted within the constitution and international protocols on human rights.
“We express our alarm and concern over the result of an attempt to stop a demonstration by coca leaf growers from entering the city of Cochabamba,” it said.