Blockade on a highway leading to Panama City, July 21, 2022. | Photo: Twitter/ @corrientesinfo2

Panama City, July 22 (RHC)-- Hundreds of trucks loaded with food and other products remained stranded on the Inter-American highway due to protests against President Laurentino Cortizo.

At least three dozen cargo trucks from other Central American countries have been stranded since Wednesday night near Santiago, the capital city of the province of Veraguas, which is located about 250 kilometers from Panama City.

That point of the Interamerican highway was the scene of a pitched battle in which hundreds of citizens faced the National Police with stones on Tuesday.  The events left an undetermined number of wounded and arrested.

Salvadoran driver Hector Guerra said that a convoy of 30 Central American trucks has been trapped in the area for three days due to massive protests against the price of fuel and food.  The tweet shows scenes from the protests near the Panama Canal.

"We are on the street in the open. We don't eat or sleep peacefully because we don't know if people could open our wagons. We are very worried," he said, adding that "a full tank of fuel costs about $1,000 U$D for a truck with a foreign license plate, which cannot access the subsidy... All of this gotten out of hand."

On Wednesday, the National Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples of Panama (COONAPIP) joined the national strike to demand that the Cortizo administration guarantee the land titling process. The Indigenous communities blocked the bridge over Lake Bayano while chanting slogans such as: "Our land is not for sale, our land is defended."

“Settlers are illegally invading our land.  They cut down trees and pollute the environment while we take care of the Lake,” Comarca Madugandi spokesperson Linares Garcia said.