Updated: 05:06, Thursday December 5, 2013
Looters have ransacked shops and supermarkets in riots that left one dead after police demanding a pay rise refused to patrol Argentina's second largest city, Cordoba.
Provincial governor Jose Manuel de la Sota said 52 people were arrested late on Tuesday, while medical sources said dozens were treated for injuries in local hospitals.
The slain man, a 20 year old, was shot in the chest and pronounced dead on arrival at Cordoba's San Roque hospital, the hospital's director Daniel Mercado told a local radio station on Wednesday.
It is unclear whether the victim was participating in the looting or a bystander, Mercado said.
Looters, some on motorcycles, ransacked stores and supermarkets as they took advantage of the absence of police, local TV footage showed. Some vandals even entered private homes to demand money, victims said.
A group of students in the Villa Allende university district, on the outskirts of the city, took to the streets with hockey sticks to defend against the assailants, they told local journalists.
By morning, calm had mostly returned to the city, though there were isolated incidents put down by neighbours, television footage showed.
School and public transportation had been shut down preemptively, officials said, and shops, banks and gas stations were closed as residents stayed home, local media reported.
"This was not poverty-motivated looting - there has been no stealing of food. The presence here has been criminal," Pedro Torres, Cordoba's Auxiliary Bishop told local TV.
Some 3000 police out of Cordoba province's 22,000-strong force had refused to leave their police stations to go on patrol on Tuesday.
Officers want higher salaries and better working conditions, said a lawyer for the police, Miguel Ortiz Pellegrini.
In the Cerveceros neighbourhood, a wife of one of the policeman refusing to work offered "apologies to the neighbours," but pledged the job action would continue "until there is a solution."
De la Sota demanded the policemen come back to work on Wednesday, threatening punishment to those who did not and accused the government of President Cristina Kirchner of ignoring his pleas for help.
Kirchner's chief of staff, Jorge Capitanich, said the provincial government had "exclusive" responsibility for the situation.
"The situation must be monitored to see what mechanisms of cooperation are possible, but we can't substitute responsibilities," Capitanich said.
But Security Secretary Sergio Berni announced on Wednesday he was deploying 2000 gendarmes to the province.
Cordoba province, with a population of 3.5 million, is Argentina's second largest after Buenos Aires province and popular with tourists who come to enjoy its countryside.
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