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Three police officers were murdered early Saturday morning in a Mapuche area in southern Chile, victims of an ambush on the day that the anniversary of the police institution was commemorated, in the worst attack suffered by law enforcement forces in the region in recent history. zone.

“This morning we received the serious and painful news of an attack in the province of Arauco in which three police officers were murdered,” President Gabriel Boric, who traveled to the area with a large delegation of authorities, reported on his X account. .

The police officers were found burned inside a police patrol on a route in the town of Cañete, near the city of Concepción, about 500 km south of Santiago.

The area 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.

The attack occurred on the day that the Carabineros, the Chilean militarized police, celebrated its 97th anniversary.

«I have no record in my history of 38 years of service, of the death of a police officer, and not only one, but three cruelly murdered, on the day of our anniversary. “This was not coincidental, it was not random,” said the general director of Carabineros, Ricardo Yañez.

Commemorative activities across Chile were canceled following the murders and President Boric declared three days of official mourning.

The attack takes place the same week that the justice system found Héctor Llaitul, leader of the Coordinadora Arauco-Malleco (CAM), one of the groups that has claimed arson attacks in the area.

Llaitul risks up to 25 years in prison for these crimes, in a sentence that the court will announce on May 7.

“Terrible crime”
According to what the Minister of the Interior and Security, Carolina Tohá, told the press, “the Firefighters received a notice of a vehicle on fire and, when they arrived at the scene, they discovered that it was a Carabineros patrol.”

“Inside the vehicle, they discovered the three deceased officials, in this burned condition,” added Tohá, who also traveled to the area.

The van in which the police were traveling was armored. The bodies were found in the back of the vehicle and had been left there after receiving bursts of gunfire on the road, where they fell dead, according to the preliminary investigation.

“I assure Chileans that there will be no impunity and that we will find the whereabouts of the perpetrators of this terrible crime,” said Boric, who described the perpetrators of this triple murder as “terrorists.”

Together with Boric, in a sign of institutional unity, the commanders of the Army, Air Force and Navy, as well as parliamentarians, and the president of the Supreme Court traveled to the city of Concepción.

«There are no fissures here; “We are a single force of the State of Chile, of Chilean society against those criminals, against those terrorists who have committed this murder that mourns the entire country,” added the president.

Upon arriving in Concepción, Boric reported that he does not rule out convening the National Security Council (Cosena), the highest advisory body on these matters.

In Santiago, meanwhile, hundreds of people gathered near the presidential palace of La Moneda, to protest the murder of the three police officers.

Almost two years ago, Boric decreed the militarization of the province of Arauco, along with other towns in the neighboring region of Araucanía, in an attempt to contain the frequent arson attacks recorded there, especially against the activities of the forestry industry.

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

Some radical Mapuche communities demand the restitution of lands that they consider theirs due to ancestral rights. Gangs dedicated to wood theft have also been disrupted in the area.

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