AUTHORITIES and protesters were injured on Thursday in eastern Panama when border police launched tear gas and fired rubber bullets to open a blocked highway in an Indigenous community.

The highway was blocked by protesters as part of demonstrations against changes to the country’s social security system which have expanded into nationwide strikes and demands a secret treaty with the United States granting its military access to Panama is revoked.

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

A resident, who requested anonymity because they feared retaliation, said they feared one protester was going to lose his eye after being struck during the violence.

The small community is in the Darien, the remote province that borders Colombia and that saw hundreds of thousands of migrants pass through until the flow effectively stopped earlier this year.

Protests have persisted in parts of Panama for a month and a half.

President Jose Raul Mulino has said that he will not reverse the social security changes, nor will he allow protesters to obstruct roads.