SANTIAGO, Chile, April 28, (AP): Armed assailants ambushed and killed three law enforcement officers in southern Chile on Saturday before setting their car on fire, authorities said, the latest attack on police to revive security concerns in the South American country.
It remains unclear who carried out the assault on Chile’s national police force in the Biobío region some 400 kilometers (about 250 miles) south of Santiago, the capital. But a long-simmering conflict between the Mapuche indigenous community and landowners and forestry companies in Biobío and Chile’s Araucanía region farther south has intensified in recent years. That has prompted the government to impose a state of emergency and deploy the military to provide security.
“There will be no impunity,” Chilean President Gabriel Boric said, declaring three days of national mourning on Saturday, after firefighters dousing the burning police car made the grisly discovery.
The spate of bloodshed has tested Boric, who came to power in 2022 promising to ease tensions in the region, where armed Mapuche activists long have stolen timber and attacked forestry companies that they claim invaded their ancestral lands, among other targets like churches and national institutions.
But the indigenous community’s distrust of authorities has deepened, spurring violence even as Boric’s administration has touted its success in reducing Chile’s national homicide rate by 6%, according to government figures from 2023 published earlier this week.
“This attack goes against all the enormous strides that have been made,” said Interior Minister Carolina Tohá, a center-left former mayor of Santiago appointed as minister in late 2022 to boost Boric’s position as his approval ratings dipped.
Describing the assailants as “terrorists,” Boric traveled south to personally offer condolences to the victims’ families. The Carabineros, Chile’s national police force, said they were “working to the best of our abilities” to catch the assailants but declined to comment on possible leads.
Assailants ambush and kill 3 police officers in southern Chile, shaking the country
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