Two more dead, 21 hurt in Peru unrest over market move

LIMA: Police at Lima's biggest wholesale market clashed Saturday with demonstrators opposing a plan to relocate it, in violence that has killed four since it began a day earlier, according to Peruvian authorities.

"Two people have died, there are 21 hurt and 77 detained" in fresh clashes Saturday, Pedraza told RPP radio, a day after unrest at the same La Pedraza market claimed two lives and left 100 injured.

City officials have long wanted to relocate La Parada, which opened 50 years ago as the main wholesale market for the city then home to around one million people.

Today Lima has a population of more than eight million, and La Parada is overwhelmed by the demand for produce. Authorities also say the market today is an unhealthy, dangerous site run by gangs that force merchants to pay protection money.