Chilean police continue patrolling

Chilean national police continue patrolling roads after three police officers were killed this weekend in an ambush in a tense Indigenous area in southern Chile, an attack one minister called unprecedented.

The triple homicide occurred in the town of Cañete, 500 km south of Santiago, the same day that the police institution celebrated a new anniversary.

It was considered the worst attack against police forces in the area, where frequent arson attacks occur, especially against forestry machinery.

The police officers were ambushed when they went aboard an armored truck to supervise compliance with a night-time prison measure. Along the way, they engaged in several confrontations.

The police died due to gunshot wounds. Once they were dead, they were put into the back of the truck, which was set on fire.

Four prosecutors are carrying out the investigation and for now no group has claimed responsibility for the attack. Three communes in the province of Arauco were under night curfew.

President Gabriel Boric traveled to the area with a large contingent, including top military and congressional officials and the president of the Supreme Court, and later declared three days of national mourning.

This week the government had celebrated the reduction by half of violent actions compared to the beginning of President Gabriel Boric's administration, in March 2022.

The area where the attack occurred is under military guard due to the arson attacks that have occurred there, mostly attributed to radical Mapuche groups, the largest Chilean ethnic group, which demands the restitution of ancestral lands.

Boric denounced those behind the latest attack as "terrorists" and told fellow Chileans, "we will find the whereabouts of the perpetrators of this terrible crime."