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Hundreds of protesters took control of the Guatemalan Congress this Saturday and set fire to several offices until they were evicted by security forces and firefighters, who put out the blaze, EFE reported.
The demonstrators, mostly hooded, broke through the front door of the Parliament and also the windows, throwing fire torches inside and advancing to destroy the structures.
For about 10 minutes, amidst the chaos, the demonstrators managed to set fire to part of the Congress and also to destroy everything they found around them.
The deputies were not in the hemicycle and at the moment no data on injuries or deaths have been released within the Congress, located in the center of Guatemala City.
Protesters were evicted as minutes passed since the National Civil Police fired tear gas, forcing them to disperse and evacuate the street.
Firefighters arrived on site to put out the fire, no damage being known at the time.
The seizure of Congress for a few minutes took place in the middle of a demonstration agreed for this Saturday by artists, groups and dozens of entities, with the aim of rejecting the budget for income and expenditure of the State for 2021, approved by Parliament, in its official majority, and presented by the government of Alejandro Giammattei.
At the same time, as hundreds of demonstrators took over the Congress, thousands of other Guatemalans demonstrated peacefully against Giammattei just a kilometer away in front of the National Palace of Culture (seat of the Government).
The Guatemalan president reacted to the demonstrations through a message on his social networks, in which he indicated that “you have the right to demonstrate according to the law” but “we cannot afford to vandalize public or private property”.
The apathy against Giammattei and the Congress arose after the approval of the budget last Wednesday, at dawn, and without the 160 deputies being able to access it.
On Friday evening, after Giammattei approved the budget again, his vice president, Guillermo Castillo, assured at a press conference that the country is not “well” and urged Giammattei to resign together to “oxygenate” the nation. Central American.
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