The Chilean government moved forward with the deployment of Chilean Army personnel in the town of Colchane, in the Tarapacá region, with the objective of building ditches and other physical barriers on the border with Bolivia and Peru.
The measure is part of the so-called “Border Shield Plan”, promoted by the administration of President José Antonio Kast, and seeks to curb irregular entry into the country.
The operation includes nearly a hundred personnel belonging to units of mountain engineers, who arrived with heavy machinery, such as excavators, bulldozers and cargo trucks, to begin earthmoving work at different strategic points along the border.
These works include the construction of ditches, stretchers and other interventions that hinder illegal traffic, in an area that in recent years has become one of the main passages of irregular migration to Chilean
territory.The Chilean Executive maintains that the initiative is being developed within the current legal framework and responds to the need to regain effective control of the territory.
Along these lines, Kast himself had supervised the start of similar work in Arica days before, reinforcing an approach that combines military presence with physical infrastructure to contain migratory flows.
