This story is now massive. Here are some of the latest reports (it's difficult to work out what is and isn't confirmed right now, so don't take the below as total gospel):
- 20 civilians dead. Update; locals now say 22 dead, though Interior Minister Mercedes "MaggieThatcher" Cabanillas says that it's not 22 dead, it's 30 injured with bullet wounds.
- 9 police dead, seven police injured
- 2 reporters dead (only seen this reported in one place so far, however)
- city of Bagua is a riot zone, with buildings burning, running battles, looting of shops etc
- union leaders calling for García to resign and condemning the bloodbath of the indigenous
- García calling indigenous leader Alberto Pizango a criminal
- hospitals collapsing under the quantity of injured
- more locals arriving in the city centre to defend their fighters
All channels and all news media in Peru are one story only.
Photos from La Republica
UPDATE: Good summary from Mate Pastor (Spanish language) that also calls for the immediate resignation of Prime Minister Yehude Simon. Quite right.
UPDATE 2: Apparently most if not all the police deaths happened when a police helicopter crashed, killing its occupants. The unconfirmed story has the heliopter overflying protestors who fired on the aircraft, bringing it down. Also, one of the dead civilians is Alberto Mauin, internationally garlanded pacifist, über-respected indigenous leader and personal friend of Queen Sofia of Spain.
UPDATE 2: Apparently most if not all the police deaths happened when a police helicopter crashed, killing its occupants. The unconfirmed story has the heliopter overflying protestors who fired on the aircraft, bringing it down. Also, one of the dead civilians is Alberto Mauin, internationally garlanded pacifist, über-respected indigenous leader and personal friend of Queen Sofia of Spain.