Police in crime-blighted Argentine city stage mutiny

ROSARIO, Argentina: Police officers demanding better pay and mental health support in the crime-blighted Argentine city of Rosario burned tires on a third day of demonstrations Wednesday, sparked by a spate of suicides within the force.

Their protest resulted in authorities agreeing to a wage increase, prompting the officers to call off their action.

The officers demanded better pay and more psychological support as they battle drug-related crime in Argentina’s third-most populous city, hometown of football star Lionel Messi.

The trigger for the protests, which began on Monday, was the death by suicide last week of a 32-year-old officer — the latest in a string of such deaths in Santa Fe province, where Rosario is located.

Monday’s protest ended in scuffles between the demonstrators and fellow officers sent to disperse them.

On Wednesday, thick, black smoke rose from burning tires outside police headquarters and convoys of patrol cars and police motorcycles blared their sirens.

There are no official figures on the number of police suicides in Santa Fe, but one protester held a sign in the shape of a cross with about 20 names of officers who took their own lives or died in the line of duty.

The average monthly wage for a police officer in Rosario is about $600.

Some officers told AFP, on condition of anonymity, that they had to pay for their office internet, uniforms and even ammunition.

“Without decent wages there is no mental health,” read a placard held aloft by another demonstrator.

A 68-year-old retired police officer, who gave his name only as Nestor, told AFP that his grandson, also a policeman, killed himself in May 2025.

He blamed his death on “so much pressure, both personal and institutional: that the money isn’t enough, that you have to work overtime, that you have a family to support.”

The province’s security minister, Pablo Cococcioni, on Wednesday attempted to calm the tensions by reinstating officers who were suspended over the protests a day earlier and vowed to boost mental health programs.

Provincial governor Maximiliano Pullaro later announced that the officers’ “demand has been heard.”

He added: “I want to be clear: no police officer in the province, nor any prison officer, will receive a salary lower than 1,350,000 pesos,” about $960.

The protest was then called off.

Messi, Di Maria hometown

Rosario is Argentina’s most violent city. It is home to a key port on South America’s second-longest river after the Amazon — the Parana — which has made it a hotspot for the trafficking of drugs from the interior of South America to ports on the continent’s southern coast.

In recent years it made headlines over threats received by home-grown football stars such as Messi and Angel Di Maria from organized crime gangs.

The murder rate, which is still the nation’s highest, has however fallen dramatically in the past two years, with authorities crediting a crackdown on gangs on the streets and in prisons.