Skip to main content
Open this photo in gallery:

Police officers check vehicles at a checkpoint on the Panamerican highway in Lima, Peru, on April 5.ERNESTO BENAVIDES/AFP/Getty Images

Peru’s capital city and main port were under a tight curfew on Tuesday decreed by President Pedro Castillo in response to sometimes violent protests over rising prices of fuel and food.

The surprise curfew announced shortly before midnight left major highways and street markets almost deserted and Peruvians struggling to find ways to get to work. Troops joined police in the streets under terms of a state of emergency that restricts rights to movement and gatherings and against arbitrary searches.

The curfew, which resembled the tightest lockdowns of the COVID-19 pandemic, exempted essential services such as food markets, pharmacies, clinics and trash collection. But there was no bus service to take workers to their jobs.

“It’s a shame. We’re experiencing a terrible economic situation, brother,” said Juan Gutierrez, a 45-year-old father of four who had been waiting in vain for a bus for more than an hour so he could get to a clothing workshop where he is paid by the piece.

“Do you know what it means to lose a day? We have to work to eat,” he added.

Protests over the past week had led to four deaths, highway blockades, the burning of toll stations and small-scale looting.

Castillo said the disturbances had caused “worry among workers, mothers and the population in general” and imposed the curfew to “re-establish peace and internal order.”

Defense Minister Jose Gavidia told journalists Tuesday that the curfew was motivated by intelligence indicating there had been plans for broader violence, especially in central Lima.

Truckers and other transport workers have been protesting and striking over fuel and food prices, blocking some key highways. In response, the government on Sunday temporarily removed a tax that increases the prices of gasoline and diesel by 28% to 30%.

That supposedly brought the price of diesel down to 47 cents a liter – about $1.78 a gallon. But many of the protesters said stations had not adopted the lower prices.

Castillo has acknowledged in recent weeks that the country faces an economic crisis that he blamed on the pandemic and the Russian war with Ukraine.

Peru’s opposition has decried the emergency measures as against the law.

Peru’s official ombudsman, Walter Gutierrez, as well as the president of Congress, Maria Alva, called the curfew “unacceptable” and said legislators would continue working.

Our Morning Update and Evening Update newsletters are written by Globe editors, giving you a concise summary of the day’s most important headlines. Sign up today.

Follow related authors and topics

Authors and topics you follow will be added to your personal news feed in Following.

Interact with The Globe