The Chilean President, gabriel boricvisited this Wednesday the small border town of Colchane (north) and assured thate together with other “friendly” rulers of the region will hold a meeting to address the issue of irregular migration.
“We are going to have a meeting with different friendly presidents from Latin America, with AMLO (Andrés Manuel López Obrador, from Mexico), Alberto Fernández, Xiomara Castro (Honduras), with Gustavo Petro (Colombia), Luis Arce (Bolivia), where one of the issues that we are going to deal with is precisely this,” of migration, Boric said.
The press office of the Chilean Presidency specified that the meeting will take place within the framework of the XXVIII Ibero-American Summit that will take place in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, on March 25.
The president spoke from the northern region of Tarapacá, where a significant number of irregular migrants enter Chile, especially Venezuelans and Colombians.
Three weeks ago, the government deployed troops from the Armed Forces in the regions of Arica, Tarapacá and Antofagastain the north of Chile, to strengthen border control.
Later, in the town of Colchane, on the border with Bolivia, he stated that he had asked his foreign minister, Alberto van Klaveren, to strengthen talks with neighboring countries, including Bolivia, to achieve a common policy to address the situation of migrants. .
The border countries “today are not carrying out the redirection of Venezuelan and Colombian citizens who enter through the Colchane border and who are not received by the place where they enter (Bolivia) and we have to solve that,” said the president.
The town of Colchane, two kilometers from the border with Bolivia, has a population of 1,680 inhabitants. According to official data, 21,553 people from Bolivia entered Chile through this step in 2022.