More than a hundred transport workers from an area near a port close to the Peruvian capital blocked a key road on Tuesday, protesting against the murder of a public transport driver during a state of emergency ordered by the government to tackle crime.

On Monday night, two men shot 47-year-old driver José Esqueche, who died on the way to hospital. This is the second murder of a driver in less than a week on the same road. 53-year-old driver Walter Sandoval was also shot dead in front of his passengers on Friday.

‘We are tired of being killed every day, people in restaurants, chicken shops, pharmacies, we are tired,’ said transport worker Josefina Solórzano as she resisted riot police trying to clear the road that had been blocked earlier by her colleagues.

Driver José Quispe said that the state of emergency declared a week ago will not curb crime and called on President José Jerí to focus on repealing several laws that favour crime, which were passed by Congress with Jerí's vote when he was a legislator.

A week ago, President Jerí declared a new 30-day state of emergency to combat the rise in crime and announced that he was beginning ‘to change the history of the fight against insecurity in Peru’ with ‘a new approach’ that moves ‘from defence to offence’.

The state of emergency curtails constitutional rights and now security forces can enter any home and arrest citizens without a warrant. Several prohibitions have also been ordered in prisons, including a reduction in visits to prisoners, the cutting of electricity in cells except for lighting, and the destruction of illegal telephone antennas in the surrounding area.

AP Video shot by Cesar Barreto