Alan García, Peru’s president, appealed for calm on Friday after more than 30 people, including nine police officers, died and dozens more were injured in a dawn clash between 600 police and more than 2,000 indigenous Amazonian protesters opposing changes to land rights laws.

The violence, which follows two months of protests, which have blocked oil and gas pipelines, roads and ports and raised the spectre of fuel shortages, spread quickly to nearby Bagua, where government offices were set alight and shops looted.