Protests over fuel subsidy cuts paralyzed transportation around Ecuador for a second day on Friday as authorities held 350 people in jail for unrest triggered by President Lenin Moreno’s belt-tightening fiscal package.
The 66-year-old president has set oil producer Ecuador on a centrist path after years of leftist rule under Rafael Correa and is implementing austerity measures to conform with a three-year $4.2 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) deal.
But Moreno’s scrapping of decades-old fuel subsidies this week incensed many Ecuadoreans and brought violent protests in a nation with a history of political volatility.
Witnesses said bus and taxi services remained on strike on Friday from the capital Quito to the coastal city of Guayaquil. In Quito, taxis parked across some streets to block traffic.
As fuel prices soared from Thursday, masked protesters hurled stones and set up burning barricades in the worst unrest for years in the country of 17 million people.
In Quito, smoldering tyres and rocks littered streets on Friday morning, while lamp-posts were bent and broken.
Transport unions began the protests, but have been joined by indigenous groups, students and other unions.
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