After inaugurating a highway in Ayacucho, in the southern mountains of Peru, this afternoon President Dina Boluarte threw candy everywhere to the people, with a wide smile. She had little in the way of popularity: her moment of joy lasted just a few seconds. A crouching woman waited for her security to be neglected to pounce on the Peruvian president. She was quickly restrained while a second woman pulled her hair. Only the first has been identified. This is Ruth Bárcena, widow of Leonardo David Hancco Chacca, one of the ten who died in Ayacucho, in the demonstrations against the president.
Historically beaten, Ayacucho did not welcome Pedro Castillo's successor, as was foreseeable. “Dina murderer! “Ayacucho repudiates you!” the crowd shouted at him. So handing out candy like someone throwing coins was considered a provocation. “They killed my husband, am I going to be calm?” Bárcena, who was detained and taken to the sector's police station, defended herself, although she was later released. Her husband, a 32-year-old transporter, was wounded in the fortnight of December 2022. A bullet pierced his chest, destroying his kidneys, liver and pancreas. She lasted two days in the Intensive Care Unit. She left a seven-year-old girl orphaned.
Bárcena was pregnant with twins when she became a widow. She lost them too. “I had to donate blood because there weren't enough donations. He was the injured person who used the most units of blood. In total, 56 units were required because my husband bled to death completely. They had to take my blood and that, added to the depression I went into, caused me to lose my twins. “Only my daughter and I are left,” she told the portal. Infobae in those days.
The harassment of President Boluarte has aroused the rejection and immediate condemnation of her ministers and congressmen. Alberto Otárola, head of the Council of Ministers, has said: “With violence, we all lose as a country. In a democracy, dialogue must always prevail and these regrettable events cannot happen. There is no justification for attacking a woman,” he said about the region that, in addition to the dozen deaths, recorded more than 60 injuries due to the repression by law enforcement forces.
The Minister of Culture, Leslie Urteaga, also joined the chorus of repudiation: “These acts should never be repeated again against any person.” For its part, the Ministry of the Interior issued a statement stating that “it will carry out the corresponding investigations in order to identify those responsible.” Hours later, the head of the agency, Víctor Torres, said in a press conference that the two women are “duly identified” and that “they are being captured.” “Drastic disciplinary measures will be taken,” he said.
The sociologist and former congresswoman Indira Huilca has been one of the discordant voices: “Women who lost husbands and children in the Ayacucho massacre confront Boluarte who threw candy to the people like the miserable person she is. How easy it is to talk about aggression in front of women who have seen their relatives die due to the insanity of a tyrant. You have to be ashamed,” she remarked. President Dina Boluarte begins the second year of her mandate, maintaining a very low level of approval, and without being able to negotiate with an opposition that has not stopped demonstrating in the streets.
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