Chilean Marines deploy their capabilities to guard the border in Arica

Members of the Marine Infantry Detachment (DIM) N° 1 Lynch of the Marine Infantry Corps (CIM) of the Chilean Navy reinforced the Naval Command and Maritime Governorate of Arica to intensify surveillance and detect and control the illegal entry of people entering the national territory from Peru.

The Chilean Government, through Supreme Decree N°78 of 2023, established the deployment of the Armed Forces for 90 days in the regions of Arica and Parinacota, Tarapacá and Antofagasta, to increase border control tasks due to an increase in migratory flows into the country and an increase in crime rates in these areas.

The presence of the human and material resources of the DIM N° 1 Lynch will allow, on the one hand, to control the levels of migration and the fulfillment of the migration requirements and, on the other hand, to ensure the necessary protection of life, physical integrity and security to those entering the country and the inhabitants of these regions.

The constant patrols carried out by the Arica surface units in the International Maritime Boundary (IMB) will also be supported and complemented by the safety navigations carried out by the Angamos maritime support boat in the area of responsibility.

INSPECTION REVIEW

The commander-in-chief of the Fourth Naval Zone, Rear Admiral Claudio Maldonado, arrived on Tuesday, February 28, in the city of Arica, going specifically to Milestone 1, where he met with the crews that are carrying out border control tasks.

Rear Admiral Maldonado said, “Today we are at the northern border with Peru, checking the naval forces that are guarding this sector to prevent the crimes that may be committed by irregular migrants trying to enter our country”.

The authority said that this task “is in addition to what the Navy has been doing permanently for a long time, which is to protect the maritime border with our Maritime Police and with our Navy resources that are present both on the coasts of the coast and also on the northern border with the Maritime Governorate of Arica and the deployed resources of the Fourth Naval Zone”.

The Rear Admiral added, “we also came to give all the support to our people who are deployed and thus be able to verify on the ground the needs and requirements they may have to fulfill this task in the best possible way”.

COASTAL DEFENSE

Marine Detachment No. 1 Lynch is an operational unit subordinated to the Command in Chief of the Fourth Naval Zone.

It constitutes a land maneuver body in the Joint Northern Theater of Operations.

It was created on July 31, 1946, as Coastal Defense Regiment No. 1 Almirante Lynch was stationed on the former Serrano Island in Iquique.

Eighteen years later, this unit was renamed Marine Detachment No. 1 Lynch and, in 2002, moved to Fort Condell in the Punta Gruesa sector of Iquique.

It is currently a unit specialized in coastal defense operations for which it has an Artillery Battery with 155/39 mm G4 howitzers towed by Mercedes-Benz Zetros 1833 4X4 trucks.

It also has light military vehicles, 4×4 KM 420, manufactured by Kia Trucks.

With information from Infodefensa