Argentinian authorities are recommending that Buenos Aires residents leave the city during the summit of the Group of 20 industrialised nations at the end of the month, local media reported yesterday.
“We recommend to residents that they go. Many areas will be closed to the public because the security measures will be very heavy,” the cable news channel America 24 quoted Security Minister Patricia Bullrich as saying.
Argentina will deploy around 20,000 security force members during the summit, which will bring leaders including US President Donald Trump and Russia’s Vladimir Putin to the capital on November 30 and December 1.
The airspace above Buenos Aires will be closed on a radius of 460km, according to the website Infobae.
An alliance representing dozens of organisations has announced protests against the summit.
The Argentinian government has ordered that November 30 will be a holiday.
“Our recommendation is that you use the long week-end to leave. Leave on Thursday, because Buenos Aires will be very complicated,” Bullrich said.
Some 3mn people live in the Argentinian capital, and about the same number commute to the city daily.
There has also been concern over recent incidents, including a man interfering with the communications system of Buenos Aires’ Jorge Newbery airport.
Earlier Argentine officials said they have arrested 12 presumed anarchists in connection with two homemade bomb attacks two weeks before the summit.
One bomb exploded on Wednesday night near the mausoleum of a police chief assassinated by anarchists on November 14, 1909. A woman suspected of involvement was injured and hospitalised in a coma, authorities said.
In a second incident, police said a man was arrested after throwing a bag of explosives at the home of judge Claudio Bonado, who is leading a high-profile probe into alleged corruption by officials of the former left-leaning government. Those devices didn’t go off until a controlled detonation by police.
Ten people were arrested at a home in the capital where Security Minister Patricia Bullrich said material similar to the explosive devices was found. She blamed both attacks on people with “an anarchist orientation.”
“We have seized fuses, powder, pipes, grinders and nails,” police chief Nestor Roncaglica told reporters.
Officials didn’t say if the attacks were aimed at the November 30-January 1 summit, but Justice Minister German Garavano said security would be redoubled and a G20 summit co-ordinator, Hernan Lombardi, said security for the gathering was at maximum alert.
Argentine President Mauricio Macri told Radio Don de La Pampa that those responsible for the law “are going to pay the consequences.”
Minister of Security Patricia Bullrich attends the presentation of security equipment to be used at the G20 Summit, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, yesterday.
