Violence erupts again in Santiago

Monitoring Desk

SANTIAGO: Riots broke out in parts of Santiago overnight and lingered into after a police truck ran over and killed a soccer fan earlier this week, marking the most violent protests since unrest broke out late last year, authorities said. Protesters attacked more than 20 police stations through the night and early morning, shouting in rage, throwing Molotov cocktails and lighting some on fire, leaving one dead and 46 police injured, according to official reports.

Several Santiago metro stations and bus lines were shut down overnight, though most had reopened. “Without a doubt, this was the most violent day of 2020,” regional police chief Enrique Bassaletti told reporters, warning that it harkened back to the “worst moments” of the previous October. Chile’s police force, known as the Carabineros, came under fire after protests in Chile broke out in late October last year. Several human rights groups accuse security forces of violations from rape to torture and undue force. The 2019 protests, the most violent since the country’s return to democracy in 1990, plunged Santiago and much of Chile into chaos. Vandals burned downtown buildings, rioters looted hundreds of grocery stores and military tanks took to the streets for the first time since the dictatorship of strongman Augusto Pinochet. (Reuters)