Indigenous activists denouncing environmental damage to their territory have occupied an oil rig in the Peruvian Amazon and are holding 41 workers there, state oil company Petroperu reported on Friday.
They are demanding that Petroperu clean up their land damaged since an oil spill two decades ago.
"
Petroperu is implementing all possible measures to obtain the release of the 41 people who remain deprived of their rights at the Morona station of the Norperuano pipeline, seized by members of the Fernando Rosas community last Wednesday," the company said
. in a press release.
According to her, the activists "
do not allow (the workers, blocked on the platform) to exercise their right to free movement
".
"
Petroperu reiterates its call to the leaders of this demonstration (...) so that they leave the station of Morona
" to find a solution through dialogue, urged the oil company.
The Morona station of the Norperuano pipeline is located in a remote area of the Amazon region of Loreto, some 1000 km northeast of Lima.
Read alsoPeru: new oil leak from the Repsol refinery
The grievances of the indigenous community were compiled in a letter sent to the Peruvian authorities.
It says that the oil company is "
obstructing the sanitation
" of their contaminated territory with each rain since a leak, they say, concealed 25 years ago.
They assure that "
no drop of oil will pass over their land
" until they have been cleaned.
Last September, indigenous groups had already protested by blocking a river affected by the crude oil spill - caused by a rupture of the Norperuano oil pipeline - in the Loreto wilderness region in the north of the country.
On September 27, the government declared a state of emergency for 90 days in the area affected by the oil spill in the territory of the Cuninico and Urarinas communities, where some 2,500 indigenous people live.
Norperuano is one of the largest oil pipelines in the country.
Built forty years ago, it transports crude oil from the Amazon to Piura on the coast, a distance of some 800 km.