Chile in mourning after three police officers killed in ambush

SANTIAGO, Chile — Armed assailants ambushed and killed three law enforcement officers in southern Chile on Saturday before setting their car on fire, the latest attack on police to revive security concerns in the South American country.

It was unclear who carried out the assault on Chile’s national police force in the Biobío region, 400 kilometres 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 car found the bodies.

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.

But the indigenous community’s distrust of authorities has deepened, spurring violence even as Boric’s administration has touted its success in reducing the national homicide rate.

“This attack goes against all the enormous strides that have been made,” said Interior Minister Carolina Tohá.

Describing the assailants as “terrorists,” Boric travelled 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.

The killing had been well planned, early reports suggest, timed to coincide with National Police Day.