AP, JAKARTA, Indonesia :
Indonesian authorities say at least two dozen people have died in the past day from drinking toxic bootleg liquor, raising the toll to 82 this month and highlighting how attempts to curb legal alcohol have tragically backfired.
National police spokesman Setyo Wasisto said Tuesday that the latest information shows 51 died in West Java in the past several days on top of the 31 who died in the capital, Jakarta, and satellite cities earlier in the month. On Monday, the death toll was 54, based on information from police and health officials.
In Cicalengka, near the West Java provincial capital of Bandung, more than 90 people were hospitalized in the past few days. Elsewhere in West Java, deaths were reported in Bandung, Sukabumi and Cileunyi.
“All the patients come with shortness of breath, diminished consciousness and many whose vision is blurred,” Amelia, a doctor at the state-run hospital in Cicalengka who uses one name, told Indonesian TV.
High taxes on alcohol have spawned a black market for booze among the poor in Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, where drinking alcohol is discouraged but not illegal. In 2015, the country banned sales of alcohol from tens of thousands of mini-marts and other small stores after pressure from conservative Muslims.
