Colombian police break up road blockades against diesel price hikes
Photo: JOAQUIN SARMIENTO / AFP
Source: AFP
Colombian police moved in Thursday to interrupt up avenue blockades in and around the capital on the fourth day of protests in opposition to a rise in diesel prices.
Hundreds of autos maintain barred roads since Monday around Bogota and other cities in a display cloak of enrage in opposition to a 20-p.c enlarge in the cost of a gallon of diesel to $2.70.
Bogota Mayor Carlos Fernando Galan mentioned on X that anti-get up police had intervened with nationwide executive approval “to take blockades” in 5 well-known aspects in and around the capital of some eight million of us.
In its final file, the police mentioned there had been 120 everlasting blockades and 82 other connected disturbances countrywide, forcing many of us to proceed or cycle to work, and disrupting deliveries and companies.
The executive had made an allure Wednesday for truckers to accomplish staunch corridors for food offers amid warnings of looming shortages.
The most indispensable wholesale food market in Bogota had registered a 40-p.c reduction in deliveries obtained, and the Colombian pharma association mentioned 30 p.c of all medication deliveries were held up.
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Enlighten oil firm Ecopetrol suspended activities at 5 oil fields as blockades interrupted operations.
Colombia’s left-soar President Gustavo Petro is on a drive to piece out subsidies that maintain saved gas prices frozen since the Covid-19 pandemic.
The diesel rate hike, which got here into attain on Saturday, affects the cost of delivery most goods in a rustic where 90 p.c of commodities are transported by avenue.
The executive argues that the original diesel rate is aloof one of potentially the most inexpensive in the enlighten.
Petro, the country’s first-ever leftist president, has accused “worthy” figures in the alternate community of being gradual the protests and insisted the gas subsidies were fiscally unsustainable.
Source: AFP
