Armed attackers killed one person and injured two others at a demonstration calling on Guatemala’s attorney general to resign, officials said on Monday.
Thousands of protesters have shut down roads across the Central American nation over the last two weeks, protesting what they have described as a campaign to prevent president-elect Bernardo Arevalo from taking office.
Monday’s attack occurred on a highway in the town of Malacatan, near the Mexican border, when about 50 people “with firearms, sticks and stones” arrived “with the intention of evicting the demonstrators” who were blocking a road, the interior ministry said in a statement.
The demonstrators are demanding Attorney General Maria Consuelo Porras, prosecutor Rafael Curruchiche and judge Fredy Orellana resign after they ordered raids on the electoral tribunal and requested the suspension of Arevalo’s Semilla party, pending an investigation into alleged registration anomalies.
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Arevalo, an anti-graft crusader and political outsider, is due to take office in January, but the international community has raised alarm over efforts to challenge the election outcome.
The prosecutor’s office told reporters that as a result of the violence in Malacatan “one person died and two wounded were taken to a medical center.”
The public security ministry added that 11 “presumed perpetrators” have been arrested.
Arevalo has called on outgoing President Alejandro Giammattei to establish a dialogue with demonstrators.
“Of one thing we are sure: in a democracy people are not assassinated for political reasons,” the 65-year-old social democrat said in a video posted on the social media platform X, formerly Twitter.
Indigenous demonstrators leading the protests have indicated they will maintain the blockades until Porras, Curruchiche and Orellana resign.
The US State Department has called the three “corrupt” and “undemocratic”.
Last week, demonstrators blocked more than a hundred roads and on Monday police reported about 30 barriers.
The Attorney General’s Office has maintained pressure to dislodge the roadblocks.
Interior Minister David Barrientos resigned on Monday, hours after Porras’s office asked a court to dismiss him for disobeying an injunction related to removing the blockades.
Arevalo has faced obstacles ever since he survived the first-round vote in June. He won a runoff vote in August, and since then has said he is up against a “slow motion” coup to prevent him from taking office.
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