Santiago, Chile — Armed robbers ambushed and killed three police officers in southern Chile on Saturday before setting their cars on fire, authorities said, in the latest attack on police to revive security concerns in the South American country.
It remains unclear who carried out the attack on Chile’s national police force in the Biobío region, about 400 kilometers (about 250 miles) south of Santiago, the capital. But a long-running conflict between the indigenous Mapuche community and landowners and forestry companies in Biobío and the Chilean region of Araucanía further south has intensified in recent years. This led the government to impose a state of emergency and deploy the military to provide security.
“There will be no impunity,” said Chilean President Gabriel Boric, declaring three days of national mourning on Saturday after firefighters who doused the burning police car made the grisly discovery.
The wave of bloodshed has tested Boric, who came to power in 2022 promising to ease tensions in the region, where armed Mapuche activists have long stolen wood and attacked forestry companies that they say have invaded their ancestral lands, among other targets such as churches and national institutions. .
But the indigenous community’s distrust of authorities has deepened, spurring violence, despite Boric’s administration touting its success in reducing Chile’s national homicide rate by 6%, according to 2023 government data published in beginning of this week.
“This attack goes against all the enormous advances that have been made,” said Interior Minister Carolina Tohá, a center-left former mayor of Santiago appointed minister in late 2022 to boost Boric’s standing as his ratings rise. approval ratings decreased.
Describing the attackers as “terrorists,” Boric traveled south to personally offer condolences to the victims’ families. The Carabineros, Chile’s national police force, said they were “working hard” to capture the attackers, but declined to comment on possible leads.
The assassination was well planned, early reports suggest, timed to coincide with National Police Day, which celebrates the 97th anniversary of the creation of the Carabineros in Chile. It was the second fatal force attack this month.
The general director of the Carabineros, Ricardo Yáñez, told reporters that the officers were sent in response to false calls for help coming from the rural road, where they were met with a hail of gunfire.
“This was not a coincidence, it was not random,” Yáñez said of the ambush.
In Chile, around 1 in 10 citizens identifies as Mapuche, the tribe that resisted the Spanish conquest centuries ago and was only defeated at the end of the 19th century, after Chile gained its independence. Large forestry companies and agricultural landowners control around 500-700 kilometers of land originally belonging to the Mapuche, many of whom now live in rural poverty.
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