LIMA: Peru’s government declared a state of emergency at its southern border with Chile on Friday, expecting an influx of people trying to flee far-right candidate Jose Antonio Kast’s potential presidency.
Under the decree, Peru’s military will reinforce border control in the southern Tacna region for 60 days, past Chile’s December 14 run-off election, in which immigration hard-liner Kast is facing off 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.
“The Peruvian National Police will maintain control of internal order, with support from the Armed Forces,” according to the order.
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 kilometers 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.
“They don’t want to let us into Peru,” the migrant, who preferred to remain anonymous, said.
The Peruvian station Radio Tacna broadcast images of migrants carrying children on the highway near the border crossing.
‘103 days left’
Peru is both a source of, and country of transit for, migrants fleeing other parts of Latin America to Chile, one of the region’s most prosperous and stable nations.
The reverse migration trend comes just over two weeks before the Chilean presidential run-off, in which Kast is favored to win.
Kast, a 59-year-old ex-MP on his third run for president, has given the country’s around 330,000 undocumented migrants an ultimatum to self-deport or be thrown out and lose everything if he takes office.
He blames undocumented migration for a surge in violent crime over the past decade.
“To undocumented immigrants in Chile, I say you have 103 days left to leave our country voluntarily,” Kast said in a video posted on Friday on his social media.
He was referring to March 11, the date when the successor of outgoing center-left President Gabriel Boric, is sworn in.
Peru’s Foreign Minister Hugo de Zela told a press conference Friday evening that the issue will be addressed via a “binational migration cooperation committee” beginning next week.
However, he stressed that Peru will not accept any more undocumented migrants.
Since 2015, more than 1.5 million Venezuelans have arrived in the country, fleeing a humanitarian and political crisis.
“We will not allow irregular migration. We do not have the conditions or capacity to receive more migrants,” he said.
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Peru declares state of emergency over expected migrant surge from Chile
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Peru declares state of emergency over expected migrant surge from Chile
- Under the decree, Peru’s military will reinforce border control in the southern Tacna region for 60 days
- State of emergency will also serve ‘to address crime and other situations of violence’ in the border area
US military boards sanctioned oil tanker in Indian Ocean
- Tanker tracking website says Aquila II departed the Venezuelan coast after US forces captured then-President Nicolás Maduro
- Pentagon says it 'hunted' the vessel all the way from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean
WASHINGTON: US military forces boarded a sanctioned oil tanker in the Indian Ocean after tracking the ship from the Caribbean Sea, the Pentagon said Monday.
The Pentagon’s statement on social media did not say whether the ship was connected to Venezuela, which faces US sanctions on its oil and relies on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains.
However, the Aquila II was one of at least 16 tankers that departed the Venezuelan coast last month after US forces captured then-President Nicolás Maduro, said Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com. He said his organization used satellite imagery and surface-level photos to document the ship’s movements.
According to data transmitted from the ship on Monday, it is not currently laden with a cargo of crude oil.
The Aquila II is a Panamanian-flagged tanker under US sanctions related to the shipment of illicit Russian oil. Owned by a company with a listed address in Hong Kong, ship tracking data shows it has spent much of the last year with its radio transponder turned off, a practice known as “running dark” commonly employed by smugglers to hide their location.
US Southern Command, which oversees Latin America, said in an email that it had nothing to add to the Pentagon’s post on X. The post said the military “conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction” on the ship.
“The Aquila II was operating in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean,” the Pentagon said. “It ran, and we followed.”
The US did not say it had seized the ship, which the US has done previously with at least seven other sanctioned oil tankers linked to Venezuela.
A Navy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations, would not say what forces were used in the operation but confirmed the destroyers USS Pinckney and USS John Finn as well as the mobile base ship USS Miguel Keith were operating in the Indian Ocean.
In videos the Pentagon posted to social media, uniformed forces can be seen boarding a Navy helicopter that takes off from a ship that matches the profile of the Miguel Keith. Video and photos of the tanker shot from inside a helicopter also show a Navy destroyer sailing alongside the ship.
Since the US ouster of Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid on Jan. 3, the Trump administration has set out to control the production, refining and global distribution of Venezuela’s petroleum products. Officials in President Donald Trump’s Republican administration have made it clear they see seizing the tankers as a way to generate cash as they seek to rebuild Venezuela’s battered oil industry and restore its economy.
Trump also has been trying to restrict the flow of oil to Cuba, which faces strict economic sanctions by the US and relies heavily on oil shipments from allies like Mexico, Russia and Venezuela.
Since the Venezuela operation, Trump has said no more Venezuelan oil will go to Cuba and that the Cuban government is ready to fall. Trump also recently signed an executive order that would impose a tariff on any goods from countries that sell or provide oil to Cuba, primarily pressuring Mexico because it has acted as an oil lifeline for Cuba.
The Pentagon’s statement on social media did not say whether the ship was connected to Venezuela, which faces US sanctions on its oil and relies on a shadow fleet of falsely flagged tankers to smuggle crude into global supply chains.
However, the Aquila II was one of at least 16 tankers that departed the Venezuelan coast last month after US forces captured then-President Nicolás Maduro, said Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com. He said his organization used satellite imagery and surface-level photos to document the ship’s movements.
According to data transmitted from the ship on Monday, it is not currently laden with a cargo of crude oil.
The Aquila II is a Panamanian-flagged tanker under US sanctions related to the shipment of illicit Russian oil. Owned by a company with a listed address in Hong Kong, ship tracking data shows it has spent much of the last year with its radio transponder turned off, a practice known as “running dark” commonly employed by smugglers to hide their location.
US Southern Command, which oversees Latin America, said in an email that it had nothing to add to the Pentagon’s post on X. The post said the military “conducted a right-of-visit, maritime interdiction” on the ship.
“The Aquila II was operating in defiance of President Trump’s established quarantine of sanctioned vessels in the Caribbean,” the Pentagon said. “It ran, and we followed.”
The US did not say it had seized the ship, which the US has done previously with at least seven other sanctioned oil tankers linked to Venezuela.
A Navy official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military operations, would not say what forces were used in the operation but confirmed the destroyers USS Pinckney and USS John Finn as well as the mobile base ship USS Miguel Keith were operating in the Indian Ocean.
In videos the Pentagon posted to social media, uniformed forces can be seen boarding a Navy helicopter that takes off from a ship that matches the profile of the Miguel Keith. Video and photos of the tanker shot from inside a helicopter also show a Navy destroyer sailing alongside the ship.
Since the US ouster of Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid on Jan. 3, the Trump administration has set out to control the production, refining and global distribution of Venezuela’s petroleum products. Officials in President Donald Trump’s Republican administration have made it clear they see seizing the tankers as a way to generate cash as they seek to rebuild Venezuela’s battered oil industry and restore its economy.
Trump also has been trying to restrict the flow of oil to Cuba, which faces strict economic sanctions by the US and relies heavily on oil shipments from allies like Mexico, Russia and Venezuela.
Since the Venezuela operation, Trump has said no more Venezuelan oil will go to Cuba and that the Cuban government is ready to fall. Trump also recently signed an executive order that would impose a tariff on any goods from countries that sell or provide oil to Cuba, primarily pressuring Mexico because it has acted as an oil lifeline for Cuba.
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