A young Chilean reporter by the name of Francisca Sandoval made her way to a commercial district of the capital to cover a union rally honoring International Workers’ Day. This would be Sandoval’s last report. During the rally, a brutal fight broke out between local gang members, protestors, and law enforcement. Gang members ended up discharging rounds injuring three attendees, one of which was Sandoval who would later pass due to her injuries. The young journalist’s death has sparked questions on the rising “lethal violence” in the country.” Between 2016-2021, homicides rose by 40%, according to Chile’s Department of Crime Prevention although the National Prosecutor’s office found that ‘murders rose by 66% from 2016-2020.” Gabriel Boric, the newly elected president of Chile, claims public safety is his government’s top priority as homicides and the use of firearms continue to increase. The Chile Department of Crime Prevention claims an increase of nearly 30% in homicides while police accredit this increase to the pandemic and economic deceleration. “Countries where the state is relatively strong and with solid democracies were supposed to be immune to this kind of scenario, but now we see that it was an illusion,” Luna said as he also points out the increasing crime in Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Ecuador, among others in the region, who have also been confronted with rising crime.
As we’ve seen with surrounding countries in the region, there is a drastic increase in crime that can be attributed to covid shutdowns and increase in organized crime. Much of Latin America continues to devolve into violent coas as many governments struggle to maintain law and order. One of the latest examples being what took place in Chile, May of this year, with a shooting involving gang members who injured 3 people, killing a young journalist, Francisca Sandoval. Latin America continues to deal with the dual threat that is drug cartels and gang violence. The real question is, will these leaders of their countries be able to solve their problems to keep them at home? If these issues aren’t resolved inside their country’s own borders, it will soon become our problem as we have already seen a little bit of. The destabilization in Latin American countries has slowly led to it becoming the United States problem on the Southern border, this is not our problem, we have enough of our own problems here at home already.
These growing issues in Latin America slowly become other countries’ issues as you see in immigration. When you have countries in borderline anarchy you have desperate people wanting to leave their country anyway they can, whether that is legally or illegally. This becomes an interstate issue, especially on the United States Southern border when you have record amounts of illegal immigrants crossing everyday because it is completely open for anyone to come across.