ARIMAE, Panama — Authorities and protesters were injured Thursday in eastern Panama when border police tried to open a highway blocked in an Indigenous community as part of monthlong demonstrations against changes to the country’s social security system.

Border police in riot gear launched tear gas and fired rubber-coated metal balls to disperse balaclava-wearing protesters firing rocks from slingshots and throwing Molotov cocktails.

The National Border Service said in a statement that three of its members were taken for medical treatment. Among the protesters, at least one man’s back and arm were studded with a constellation of wounds from pellets fired by police and another appeared to suffer a serious injury to one eye.

An Associated Press journalist saw at least one home burned wh

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