San José, (EFE).- The Government of Costa Rica began this Friday to repatriate Costa Ricans who are stranded in Peru due to the blockade of roads in the framework of the anti-government protests of the last days.
The Costa Rican Foreign Ministry reported that this Friday a group of 21 people will return to the country, of which 14 are students from a secondary school and another 7 from a family, who were on vacation in Cusco and who had not been able to leave the area.
“We had detected 100 Costa Ricans who were in Cusco, between tourists and residents in Peru, who could not leave the area due to roadblocks. Of that total, about 20 will travel to Costa Rica today,” the consul in Peru, Eduardo Cubero, said in a statement.
The consul said that the evacuation of Cusco is being carried out by the Peruvian authorities by air and that it is expected that more Costa Ricans will be able to mobilize from there in the next few hours.
The Costa Rican government does not report people injured or with health problems.
Peru has been going through days of social and political tension since last December 7, the day of the failed self-coup of former president Pedro Castillo, when Congress dismissed him and, shortly after, he was arrested. Peruvian justice has decreed for him 18 months of preliminary preventive detention.
The vice president, Dina Bolaurte, immediately took office as head of state, and three days later demonstrations, protests and riots broke out in most of the country, in which, so far, 20 people have died and more than 200 police officers have result injured. EFE
