The Peruvian army and police forces have continued to patrol the Amazonas department where violent clashes took place over the weekend, as indigenous communities made their own lists of dead and missing protesters.
Clashes between police and Amazon Indians fighting government efforts to exploit oil, gas and other resources on their native lands have left 23 police officers and nine civilians dead since last Friday, according to official reports.
But protest leaders claim at least 30 indigenous Peruvians, including three children, have been killed.
A group of indigenous people spent the weekend at a convent in Bagua afraid of going back to their villages.
On Monday community leaders began registering villagers taking their names and identity card numbers in order to monitor how many of their neighbours may still be missing.
According to the man compiling the list, 56 people are known to be dead with many more missing.
AP Television News had no way of verifying his words, but different Indian sources have said that police burned or threw some bodies into the Maranon river beside the highway to hide the true death toll.
The clashes erupted when security forces moved early on Friday to break up a roadblock manned by 5,000 indigenous Peruvians protesting government plans to exploit further Peru's natural resources.
On Saturday, authorities said they could confirm only the nine civilian deaths, but Peruvian cabinet chief Yehude Simon told reporters that 155 people had been injured, about a third of them with bullet wounds.
He announced a 3:00pm-6:00am (local time) curfew, which took effect immediately in the sweltering jungle region.
On Monday the main indigenous association, which acts as an umbrella for other smaller groups, gave a press conference in Lima in which they said they regretted the deaths over the weekend.
But the vice president of the AIDESEP said the government and not their leader Alberto Pizango was to blame for the violence.
Pizango went into hiding after a judge on Saturday issued a warrant for his arrest on sedition charges.
Meanwhile, the Peruvian government launched a television campaign in which they portrayed the Amazonian Indians as "ferocious and savages" who killed "unarmed and defenceless" police officers.
The advertisement, made by the Interior Ministry and broadcast by all Peruvian television stations, starts with Pizango calling the tribes to insurgency some weeks ago.
His soundbite has been edited to clearly underline the word "insurgency".
The video also shows graphic pictures of some of the police officers killed during the weekend.
But the images where indigenous protesters carrying spears marched across the highway do not correspond to the day where the clashes took place. They were filmed the day before.
Indigenous Peruvians have been blocking roads, waterways and a state oil pipeline intermittently since April 9, demanding that Peru's government repeal laws they say help foreign companies exploit their lands.
AAP