Pressure mounts on Colombia as protests begin second week

BOGOTA: Thousands of demonstrators poured into Colombia's streets Wednesday to protest the government of President Ivan Duque, marking an eighth day of deadly clashes that have brought international condemnation.

Students, unions, indigenous people and other groups assembled Wednesday in the capital Bogota as well as the cities of Medellin in the northwest and Cali in the southwest.

The demonstrators are rallying against the Duque government's policies on health, education and security, in addition to protesting the violence demonstrated by security forces.

According to official figures, at least 24 people have died -- 18 of whom were shot -- with more than 800 others injured and 89 people reported as missing during the week.

However exact figures vary, with the Temblores NGO reporting 31 people dead. Reporters Without Borders meanwhile said that 76 journalists were assaulted, 10 of whom were injured by security forces.

Demonstrators staged protests at various points around Bogota on Wednesday, holding banners with slogans such as "Duque resign."

Despite calls for calm from the international community, fresh havoc was wreaked in the capital overnight.

Thirty civilians and 16 police officers were injured in numerous attacks on police stations, the Bogota mayor's office said.

On Wednesday the aftermath of the clashes was visible in the capital in the form of torched police stations, vandalized bus shelters and banks, and smoldering tires.

"It hurts to see this but what hurts even more is the negligence of a deaf government that prefers to send the public forces, that instead of helping (the people) prefers to help the banks, the big businesses," Hector Cuinemi, a 19-year-old student in Bogota, told AFP.

Around 8,000 people took to the streets of Medellin, Colombia's second largest city, by mid-morning, chanting slogans against Duque's political mentor, former president Alvaro Uribe.

Many roadblocks remained in Cali -- the third largest city and one of the most violent in Latin America -- causing fuel shortages and concern over the delivery of medical supplies with the country struggling against a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

Several thousand indigenous people joined the city's protests, many of them shouting "resistance."