MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Paz thanks Milei for sending Hercules aircraft to bring food to blockaded Bolivian cities

“My deepest gratitude to President Milei for the invaluable support extended to Bolivia with the dispatch of the Hercules aircraft for humanitarian assistance tasks,” Paz wrote

Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz on Friday thanked his Argentine counterpart, Javier Milei, for sending two C-130 Hercules military aircraft to reinforce the airlift aimed at supplying food and basic goods to the cities of La Paz and El Alto, affected by ten consecutive days of road blockades by peasant unions from the highlands. The regional gesture comes during one of the most critical weeks of the centrist leader's six-month tenure, against a backdrop of shortages and growing political tension with sectors aligned with former president Evo Morales.

“My deepest gratitude to President Milei for the invaluable support extended to Bolivia with the dispatch of the Hercules aircraft for humanitarian assistance tasks,” Paz wrote on his social media accounts. The president said the decision “not only strengthens the historic bonds of brotherhood” between the two countries, but also “represents vital relief” for the affected Bolivian communities. Presidential spokesperson José Luis Gálvez had confirmed earlier that the Argentine planes would join the operation the national government has been running since Monday to ensure the entry of food into the most affected areas.

Mi más profundo agradecimiento al presidente @JMilei por el invaluable apoyo brindado a Bolivia con el envío de los aviones Hércules para tareas de asistencia humanitaria. Este gesto de solidaridad no solo fortalece los históricos lazos de hermandad entre nuestras naciones, sino…

— Rodrigo Paz Pereira (@Rodrigo_PazP) May 16, 2026

Peasant farmers from the La Paz highlands have maintained the blockades for ten days to demand the president's resignation, a call backed by the Bolivian Workers' Central (COB), which initially demanded a 20% salary increase. The road closures have concentrated in the department of La Paz, cutting off overland transit toward the country's interior and toward Chile and Peru, and have caused shortages of food, fuel, and medical supplies such as hospital oxygen. National authorities attribute three deaths during the protests to the lack of timely medical care, while the tourism sector reports losses estimated at 456.9 million bolivianos, equivalent to some 66 million dollars.

The Public Defender's Office and the Catholic Church have called for the opening of “humanitarian corridors” to guarantee the passage of ambulances, medicines, food, and fuel, and urged authorities to generate “effective dialogue spaces” with the protesters. The government has in parallel denounced an alleged “macabre plan” purportedly designed by Morales to “break the constitutional order” and financed, according to the official version, by drug-trafficking structures. The former president has rejected the accusations and replied that the executive is obliged “to prove its lies.”

Milei's backing of Paz consolidates an emerging regional political axis between the Argentine libertarian administration and the Bolivian centrist government in the face of the conflict driven by sectors historically aligned with the Movement Toward Socialism. The COB and the indigenous and peasant unions were pillars of the governments of Morales (2006-2019) and Luis Arce (2020-2025), now at odds with the national executive in a scenario that keeps one of South America's most volatile democracies on edge.