Anti-government Protester Hit in the Head by Projectile Fired by Riot Police

[kellyhound]

A video recorded on Saturday during an anti-government protest in Quito, the capital of Ecuador, shows the moment when a protester receives the impact of a projectile on his head.

The recording shows a group of protesters who were sheltering from the police behind a barrier of bricks and shields made of cardboard, when a loud detonation is heard and then one of the civilians falls to the despair of his other companions, who scream for the presence of paramedics.

“ They killed him, they killed him,” the protesters are heard saying, while the video shows a wound on the victim's head. It has not been reported if the shot was real ammunition, rubber bullet or tear pump. Nor is it known about the state of the young man.

Violence plunged Quito into chaos this Saturday. Protesters set fire to a public building and stormed media, which led the government to impose a curfew in the capital in the context of an indigenous protest against economic adjustments.

The new day of rejection against the measures agreed with the IMF degenerated rapidly.

Around the National Assembly, indigenous people erected barricades with logs and wooden shields and faced stone and pyrotechnics with the police, which responded with a shower of tear gas.

Groups of hooded raided the headquarters of the Comptroller, which was engulfed in flames.

President Lenín Moreno imposed the curfew and ordered to militarize this city of 2.7 million inhabitants. The drastic measure, which prohibits the circulation in Quito and its surroundings, began to take effect after 3:00 p.m. (8:00 p.m. GMT). No authority reported its validity.

"I have arranged for the Joint Command of the Armed Forces, immediately, to take the necessary measures and operations," the president said in a brief message to the nation.

Before nightfall, security forces still struggled to impose order in some parts of the city where groups of people challenged the curfew.

The chaos expanded on the same day that the indigenous movement agreed to sit down and talk with the government, looking for a way out of the severe crisis that broke out 11 days ago.

Moreno follows the situation from the port of Guayaquil, where he moved the seat of government after declaring the state national exception on October 3 and mobilizing the Armed Forces, in an attempt to contain social unrest.

Since then six civilians have been killed and about 2,100 injured and detained, according to the Ombudsman's Office.

The protests also keep oil transportation interrupted - the largest source of foreign exchange - by the country's main pipeline because of the occupation of wells in the Amazon.

[Oswald2001]

Too much yelling of "Puta!", not enough protective gear.

[takanuvanathan]

Cardboard shields???