Clashes erupted Monday in Rosario, northeast Argentina, between police and residents who attacked the homes of people they believe were involved in a shooting related to drug trafficking that media and authorities say claimed a child died has cost lives.
According to TV footage, police used rubber bullets to disperse a few dozen people, who threw rocks and began tearing down the walls of a small brick house in a popular neighborhood northwest of Rosario, 300km from Buenos Aires.
The police exfiltrated the resident of the house, which was subsequently ransacked, and the neighbors took away furniture, household appliances and toys. Local residents then destroyed the house with hammer blows. Another home was attacked by a fire that was brought under control by firefighters.
The province’s security minister, Claudi Brilloni, told reporters at the scene that the incidents reflect “social weariness” with “drug trafficking in retail stores and clashes in vulnerable neighborhoods.”
The incidents follow a Saturday night shooting that left four children between the ages of 2 and 14 injured. An 11-year-old boy died from his injuries.
“There has been a territorial struggle for some time between a group from the sector and another from other countries (…) over the issue of drug sales,” prosecutor Adrian Spelta, in charge of the investigation, told local radio station Radio2. Shots were fired from a vehicle and “four children who were playing near the (person) target” were hit.
Rosario, a major port and Argentina’s third largest city (population 1 million), has turned into a drug trafficking hotspot in recent years. At the same time, it has become the country’s most dangerous city with 287 homicides in 2022, a homicide average five times higher than the country’s.