Police in Argentina blocked a major entry point to the capital's centre on Tuesday to keep a group of truckers from joining a downtown protest, adding traffic snarls in Buenos Aires to a series of disruptions caused by anger over rising prices and shortages of fuel across South America, largely as a result of Russia's war in Ukraine.
Cars were backed up for several kilometers (miles) until truckers agreed to open up a lane to regular traffic as they moved to take a protest over diesel shortages and prices that has been going on for weeks to Argentina's capital.
Argentina is only one of several countries in South America to see reverberations from increasing fuel prices, largely as a result of Russia's war in Ukraine. In Peru, truckers launched an indefinite strike on Monday to protest higher fuel prices while in Ecuador, at least five people have been killed during more than two weeks of a protest led by Indigenous people that has as its main rallying cry a demand for lower gasoline prices.
The reverberations of higher prices are also hitting executive offices. In Brazil, the chief executive of state-run oil giant Petrobras resigned last week amid political pressure due to curb prices.
