Reports of police violence against children during clashes with Mapuche communities in southern Chile require a full, impartial investigation, a representative of the United Nations Children´s Fund, UNICEF, said on Oct. 26.

Below is an article published by Latin America Press :

On Oct. 16, “a numerous group of police for unclear motives started to fire pellets and tear gas” in a school in La Araucanía region in southern Chile, according to a statement issued by the Paris-based International Federation of Human Rights. Several children had reportedly been wounded and suffered from breathing difficulties.

The area is a tense zone for the Mapuche community and the militarized Carabinero police. Several months ago, the Mapuche communities began taking back their ancestral lands in the area, some of which are in the hands of forestry and agricultural companies, only to be met with extreme force by police.

“UNICEF is calling on the government and all parties in the conflict to seek to improve the conditions for reporting incidents, because if people are afraid of making a complaint, no investigation is possible,” said the organization´s country representative, Gary Stahl, following a meeting with three government ministers in Santiago. “Unless an investigation is carried out, we cannot find out what really happened, and what we have now is completely contradictory reports.”

“There is a different way to act depending on whether there are children present.”

The government has denied the reports that police shot at Mapuche children.

At the moment “we have not seen any impartial investigation so we cannot know exactly what happened,” said Stahl. “We need to know what happened so there isn´t another generation of Chileans marked by violence, and (we need to) look for a solution so this doesn´t happen again in the future.”