Chile declares national mourning after three police officers killed

It’s the latest attack on security forces in a region where tensions have long simmered between locals and the state.

Armed assailants have ambushed and killed three police officers in southern Chile before setting their car on fire, authorities said, the latest attack on police to revive security concerns in the South American country.

In a statement on X on Saturday, President Gabriel Boric called the attack in Arauco province’s Canete municipality “cowardly” and declared three days of national mourning to honour the officers, identified as Sergeant Carlos Cisterna, Corporal Sergio Arevalo and Corporal Misael Vidal.

“Today the entire country is in mourning. There is heartbreak, sorrow, anger. But these emotions do not paralyse us, they force us, they mobilise us,” Boric wrote. “We will find the whereabouts of the perpetrators of this terrible crime.”

Authorities said the officers responded to three false emergency calls and were attacked in their vehicle with heavy-calibre weapons. They burned inside the armoured patrol vehicle on a road near the city of Concepcion, some 400km (about 250 miles) south of the capital, Santiago.

It remains unclear who carried out the assault but a long-simmering conflict between the Mapuche Indigenous community and landowners and forestry companies in the region has intensified in recent years. The conflict forced the government to impose a state of emergency and deploy the military to provide security.