Photo credit: RFI
Peru’s government has declared a state of emergency at its southern border with Chile on Friday.
Arab News reports that the country is expecting an influx of people trying to flee Chile should the far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast win the presidential election.
Under the decree, Peru’s military will reinforce border control in the southern Tacna region for 60 days. Chile’s run-off election will take place on December 14. Anti-immigrant Kast will be running against left-wing candidate Jeannette Jara.
The state of emergency will also serve “to address crime and other situations of violence” in the border area.
Peru’s President Jose Jeri had announced earlier on Friday that such an action was forthcoming, after dozens of migrants were reported to be stuck at the Chile-Peru border.
A video posted by the Chilean governor of the Arica border region, around 2,200 kilometres north of Santiago, showed dozens of people attempting to exit from Chile at the Chacalluta-Santa Rosa border crossing.
A Venezuelan migrant told the online news outlet The Clinic that the group was trying to leave Chile “for fear that they remove us by force” if Kast becomes the next president.
The Peruvian station Radio Tacna broadcast images of migrants carrying children on the highway near the border crossing.
Peru is both a source of, and a country of transit for, migrants fleeing other parts of Latin America to Chile, one of the region’s prosperous and stable nations.
The reverse migration trend comes just over two weeks before the Chilean presidential run-off.
