Violent clashes between police and members of a radical teachers union who had blockaded roads in southern Mexico on Sunday left six people dead and more than 100 injured, officials said.

The teachers, from the National Coordinator of Education Workers (CNTE), are opposed to the mandatory testing of teachers as part of Mexico’s sweeping education reform and are also protesting the arrest of union leaders on money-laundering and other charges.

In Sunday’s clashes in the southern state of Oaxaca, protesters threw stones and Molotov cocktails and burned vehicles, while Associated Press journalists saw riot police firing on protesters. Clashes took place in several municipalities in Oaxaca, but the most violent were in Nochixtlan, north of the state capital, also called Oaxaca.

In a late-night press conference, Oaxaca Gov. Gabino Cue, accompanied by Federal Police Chief Enrique Galindo, raised the death toll from the clashes in Nochixtlan to six. They said 53 civilians, 41 federal police officers and 14 state police officers were injured. (AP)

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