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Protesters are demanding the return of ousted leftist leader Evo Morales, pressuring the coup plotters by blocking the plant, cutting off fuel supply to nearby La Paz.
Bolivian police and military forces used armored vehicles, helicopters and tear gas to crack down on protesters blocking access to a major gas plant in the city of El Alto on Tuesday.
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Helicopters flew above roads around the Senkata gas plant, operated by state-run YPFB, and a heavily-equipped police unit dispersed the crowd with tear gas and bullets, according to protesters, who added that two people were killed and various were injured.
Another protester said that four protesters have been killed but the information could not be confirmed at this point.
Mounting violence in the South American nation has seen over 20 people killed in street clashes.
The IACHR ( Inter-American Commission on Human Rights) expressed "concern about the actions of the armed forces in the operations carried out in Bolivia since the beginning of the week," and on Saturday the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet also warned on Saturday about the dangerous path that protests are taking in Bolivia after the deaths in Sacaba, as the situation could ”spin out of control.”
President Evo Morales was forced to resign on Nov. 10 after senior army and police chiefs called on him to do so following weeks of right-wing unrest and violence against his Oct. 20 elections victory, in what his government and world leaders have called a coup by opposition forces in the country.
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