Peru faces food, fuel shortages as Boluarte defiant

Protests, which broke out after the ouster in early December of former president Pedro Castillo, have repeatedly turned violent.

Shortages in Peru of basic products, including increasingly expensive fuel and food, mount further Wednesday, as the president remained defiant in the face of relentless protests.

Dozens of roadblocks are hindering freight deliveries to the country's south, where protests demanding the resignation of President Dina Boluarte have been most intense.

But Ms. Boluarte told a regional summit Wednesday that she will not yield to the demonstrators, many of whom are from Indigenous and rural Andean regions.

"I am not going to surrender to authoritarian groups that want to impose solutions that are not part of our constitutional order or the democratic tradition," Ms. Boluarte said in a virtual address to the Organization of American States (OAS).

Protests, which broke out after the ouster in early December of former president Pedro Castillo, have repeatedly turned violent, with 46 people dying in clashes between security forces and protesters.

On Wednesday, dozens of protesters rallied in front of the U.S. embassy in Lima, decrying what they see as American support for the embattled president.

Some 250 kilometers (155 miles) south of Lima in the province of Ica, clashes broke out when law enforcement officers tried to dismantle roadblocks on the Panamericana Sur highway, with protesters throwing stones and police firing tear gas.