COUNTERPROTESTERS clashed with thousands of peaceful anti-government demonstrators marching in support of Bolivia’s former president Evo Morales on Tuesday.

In a show of force against current President Luis Arce, Mr Morales and his supporters, mainly poor and indigenous Bolivians, embarked on a 118-mile March to Save Bolivia.

The march, from the small village of Caracollo to the administrative capital La Paz, began peacefully on Tuesday morning, but it turned violent hours later after hundreds of counterprotesters, armed with tear-gas bombs, stones and firecrackers, spread across the highway to confront the nearly 10,000 marchers. Some of them set a giant effigy of the former president on fire.