Migration crisis worsens in Chile with 17 deaths in 2021

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The migration crisis in northern Chile continues. So far this year, 17 people – five of them in October – have died trying to enter through illegal border crossings. This situation experts believe will continue as long as the government does not rethink its migration policies and focuses only on militarizing the border.

The most recent case involves a 63-year-old Venezuelan woman who died in the Pisiga Carpa wetland (a high-altitude wetland at the border crossing between Bolivia and Chile) “after experiencing various health problems,” reports Yolanda Flores, health director in Colchane in the northern region of Tarapacá.

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Among the people who have died so far in 2021 is a nine-month-old girl of Venezuelan parents.

Francisca Vargas Rivas, director of the Immigrants and Refugees Legal Counsel at the University of Diego Portales, told Télam that the current migration policy of reinforcing the border with police and military “is not working.”

She explained that if the government wanted “safe and regular migration,” it should “review the regular channels for entry (of foreigners) and not the number of police and soldiers at the border.”

The main flow of irregular entry of foreigners is in Colchane, a small municipality on the border with Bolivia, where, according to municipal authorities, more than 200 people enter illegally every day, most of them Venezuelans; this irregular entry of immigrants has created a social and humanitarian crisis in several municipalities in the north.

According to the academic, the new migration policy, which consists of applying for a visa at the different consulates to enter Chile, favors irregular entry into the country due to the delay in the procedure, which has led to an aggravation of the crisis in the north.

Vargas Rivas suggested that migration flows should be addressed at the regional level and that “Chile should reach agreements on human rights with Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, and Colombia so that we can look for solutions together and, on that basis, states should do what they can to support their role.”

To prevent the illegal entry of people, the government announced the “Plan Colchane” in early February, which included militarization and police reinforcement of the area. Still, this plan was called a “failure” by Javier García, the mayor of Colchane.

The migration issue came to a head in late September when an anti-immigrant march with 3,000 participants in Iquique, a northern coastal city west of the Atacama Desert, included verbal and physical attacks on a Venezuelan encampment that was set on fire, and three people were arrested and charged, according to Chilean carabineros.

Following these events, the government announced a tightening of migration policies for the north, such as military protection of the border and shelters to provide comprehensive care for those already in Chilean territory.

According to data from the Migration and Foreigners Authority, more than 1.4 million foreigners live in Chile, a country of 19 million people.