Supporters of former President Evo Morales in Bolivia have taken more than 200 soldiers hostage, the country’s government reported Saturday, as unrest prompted by an abuse investigation of the ex-leader continued for a third week, Paralel.Az reports.

Bolivia's Foreign Ministry in a statement identified those involved in the hostage taking as members of “irregular groups” and accused them of also stealing weapons and ammunition. It did not identify the groups, nor did it explain how the soldiers were taken hostage. But a day earlier, President Luis Arce said those protesting and attacking military units were supporters of Morales.

Arce characterized the seizing of three military barracks in a coca-growing area in central Bolivia as “an absolutely reprehensible criminal act that is far from any legitimate social claim of the Indigenous peasant movement.”