Panama declared a state of emergency in Bocas del Toro province on June 20, 2025, after weeks of protests over pension reform escalated into deadly clashes and property damage. The measure temporarily suspended some constitutional rights and prohibited public gatherings for five days.
Police said at least one person had died and about 30 people, including several officers, were injured during the unrest. Protests had been under way in the western province for roughly two months and intensified during the week of the declaration. Bocas del Toro is one of Panama's main banana-producing regions.
Presidential Minister Juan Carlos Orillac said the emergency powers were intended to restore order. The government accused groups involved in the disturbances of damaging public property, setting part of a baseball stadium on fire and looting businesses. Authorities also said people took control of the airport in Changuinola, stole rental vehicles and looted an office and warehouse used by banana company Chiquita. Flights were suspended.
The protests were supported by unions and Indigenous organizations opposing pension legislation approved in March. Confrontations were especially intense around Changuinola and had involved workers from a local Chiquita plantation. The company characterized their strike as an unjustified abandonment of work and dismissed thousands of employees.
Those workers later withdrew from the protests after negotiating the restoration of some benefits that the pension changes had removed, according to Al Jazeera. Roadblocks nevertheless remained in Bocas del Toro, though the government did not directly blame the Chiquita workers for keeping them in place.
The five-day period placed immediate limits on assembly while the province remained affected by roadblocks and suspended air travel. The emergency declaration marked a forceful response by President José Raúl Mulino's administration to a protest movement extending beyond pensions. Panamanians had also demonstrated over an April agreement with the United States allowing US troops to deploy to Panamanian facilities along the Panama Canal. Environmental campaigners, meanwhile, opposed Mulino's stated intention to reopen the Cobre Panama copper mine.
Those wider disputes show the political pressure surrounding the Bocas del Toro crisis, but the immediate legal action addressed what officials called an escalation of violence in the province. The EFE report independently confirmed that the government had declared an emergency in the banana-growing region on that basis.
As of the June 21 event date, the five-day restriction was in force, one death and roughly 30 injuries had been reported, and authorities were seeking to regain control of roads and public facilities. The available evidence records allegations by officials and businesses about particular acts; it does not provide court findings assigning individual responsibility for the violence or looting.
