The Government announced this Saturday the construction of a new ditch on the northern border with Bolivia to stop the massive arrival of irregular migrants, mostly Venezuelans, in the midst of a humanitarian crisis without precedent in recent years.
“It is a new ditch that runs parallel to the border with Bolivia and also parallel to a ditch that already exists on the Bolivian side, but that did not exist on the Chilean side,” explained Interior Minister Rodrigo Delgado.
The objective of the new ditch, Delgado pointed out, “is to have greater control capacity of criminal gangs who want to pass by in vehicles or of people who want to enter Chile clandestinely.”
It is about 300 meters of furrow, which will begin to be excavated next week to the north of another 600-meter trench that was built five years ago at the Colchane border crossing, a town that has been overwhelmed since the crisis began a year ago.
The north has been mired in a strong migration crisis for a year with the massive arrival of people through clandestine steps, the collapse of small border towns, the holding of anti-migration marches and xenophobic attacks.
The inclement high plateau passes continue to form the main irregular entry route to Chile, which remains one of the most attractive countries to migrate within Latin America due to its political and economic stability, despite the pandemic and the social crisis of 2019.
The Government decreed the State of Exception on February 17, which in practice implies a militarization, and renewed it this week for 15 more days until March 17.
The measure will apply to the provinces of Arica, Parinacota, Tamarugal and El Loa and will end six days after the president-elect, Gabriel Boric, takes office. As the military deployment has already been declared twice by the Piñera government, if Boric wants a new extension – something that has not yet been defined – will need the approval of Parliament.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) warned last December that nearly 500 Venezuelan refugees and migrants, including children, cross daily through irregular border crossings between Bolivia and Chile and arrive in the country “after several days without eating, with dehydration , hypothermia and altitude sickness”.
So far this year, at least three people have died trying to cross the border and more than twenty since the massive flow began in February 2021.
In Chile there are 1.4 million migrants, which is equivalent to more than 7% of the population, and Venezuelans are the most numerous, followed by Peruvians, Haitians and Colombians.
