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A driver has shot dead two environmental demonstrators at near point-blank range because they were blocking the road and refused to move.

Disturbing footage showed a man with grey hair and glasses casually approaching the blockade on the Pan-American Highway in Chame, Panama yesterday. He angrily waves his finger while arguing with the demonstrators before pulling out a gun and opening fire. Other footage too horrifying to publish shows people standing around bodies in the road.

The two deceased, identified on social media as teachers, were at a barricade placed by "peaceful" protesters, police said, when the man opened fire. Police later shared a photo of the suspect handcuffed to a pipe as he was identified as Kenneth Darlington, 77, a lawyer and professor who holds dual citizenship in the US and Panama, according to Newsroom Panama and Agence France-Presse.

Mr Darlington initially attempted to reason with the protesters, but moments later pulled a handgun from his pocket. Despite the threat, the protestors refused to move and continued to engage in conversation with the disgruntled motorist, who became visibly more enraged. He then fires at the first victim. Terrified onlookers and other protesters moved the victim to the side of the road and laid him down on the ground. Another protester tried to confront the gunman and was also shot.

Panama is in its third week of impassioned, nationwide protests that have been demanding that the government overturn a contract to continue copper mining in a biodiverse region. Teaching and construction unions led calls against the contract with environmentalists, saying continued development threatens forested land and crucial groundwater just 75 miles west of the capital, in the state of Colon.

In March, Panama’s legislature reached an agreement with Canadian mining company First Quantum, allowing its local subsidiary, Minera Panama, to continue operating a huge open-pit copper mine in central Panama for at least 20 more years — with the possibility of extending for a further 20 years if the mine remains productive. The mine was temporarily closed last year when talks between the government and First Quantum broke down over payments the government wanted to receive. Protests began after President Laurentino Cortizo signed off on that contract after it was approved by Congress.

Since protests began, the government nearly passed legislation that would have revoked the contract, but it backtracked in a late-evening debate at the National Assembly on November 2. Panama President Laurentino Cortizo sent his condolences to the dead protesters’ families, saying that such a crime "has no place" in his nation’s supportive society. The deadly shooting came after Panamanian media reported that a demonstrator was run over and killed last week by a foreigner attempting to drive past a roadblock.