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Ecuador's Interior Minister Patricio Carrillo said Wednesday that 18 policemen are missing and six captured by demonstrators in the Amazonian city of Puyo.
Growing violence in the South American country also left one protester dead, presumably from the impact from a bomb blast to his head, according to the government late Tuesday.
Police have requested "that the autopsy be carried out with transparency with forensic doctors who do not belong to the institution," said Carrilo.
"They tried to set fire to police personnel inside patrol cars," said Carrillo. "These acts are not social protests, they are criminal acts."
It brings to two the number of dead victims in the protests that have been ongoing for 10 days.
Carrillo said 6 officers were injured and 18 vehicles set on fire.
"People in a drunken state generated impressive mobs that did not allow people to receive health care, ambulances, food. The shortage in the city was already reaching intolerable levels," Carrillo said at a news conference.
Protests turned violent Tuesday when demonstrators confronted police and soldiers with explosives and weapons. Riot police clashed with demonstrators using tear gas.
Antigovernment protests in Ecuador entered a second week and tensions are rising between police and indigenous people, who entered the nation's capital of Quito on Sunday.
Indigenous, students and social organizations are asking President Guillermo Lasso to lower gasoline costs and agricultural goods to reverse the privatization of public services and to stop additional oil and mining development, among other concessions.
Lasso said he is open to dialogue but has stressed that authorities will not allow political groups to destabilize the country.
Indigenous leaders have imposed a series of conditions for talks and warned that protests will continue until Lasso gives in to their demands.
Indigenous people make up about 1 million of Ecuador's 17.7 million population. -
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