latin-america
Unprecedented wave of narco-violence stuns Argentina city
The order to kill came from inside a federal prison near Argentina's capital. Unwitting authorities patched a call from drug traffickers tied to one of the country's most notorious gangs to collaborators on the outside. Hiring a 15-year-old hit man, they sealed the fate of a young father they didn't even know.
At a service station on March 9 in Rosario, the picturesque hometown of soccer star Lionel Messi, 25-year-old employee Bruno Bussanich was whistling to himself and checking the day's earnings just before he was shot three times from less than a foot away, surveillance footage shows. The assailant fled without taking a peso.
It was the fourth gang-related fatal shooting in Rosario in almost as many days. Authorities called it an unprecedented rampage in Argentina, which had never witnessed the extremes of drug cartel violence afflicting some other Latin American countries.
A handwritten letter was found near Bussanich's body, addressed to officials who want to curb the power drug kingpins wield from behind bars. “We don’t want to negotiate anything. We want our rights," it says. "We will kill more innocent people.”
Shaken residents interviewed by The Associated Press across Rosario described a sense of dread taking hold.
“Every time I go to work, I say goodbye to my father as if it were the last time,” said 21-year-old Celeste Núñez, who also works at a gas station.
The string of killings offer an early test to the security agenda of populist President Javier Milei, who has tethered his political success to saving Argentina’s tanking economy and eradicating narco-trafficking violence.
Since taking office Dec. 10, the right-wing leader has promised to prosecute gang members as terrorists and change the law to allow the army into crime-ridden streets for the first time since Argentina's brutal military dictatorship ended in 1983.
His law-and-order message has empowered the hardline governor of Santa Fe province, which includes Rosario, to clamp down on incarcerated criminal gangs that authorities say orchestrated 80% of shootings last year. Under the orders of Governor Maximiliano Pullaro, police have ramped up prison raids, seized thousands of smuggled cellphones and restricted visits.
“We are facing a group of narco-terrorists desperate to maintain power and impunity,” Milei said after Bussanich was killed, announcing the deployment of federal forces in Rosario. “We will lock them up, isolate them, take back the streets.”
Milei won 56% of the vote in Rosario, where residents praise his focus on a problem largely neglected by his predecessors. But some worry the government's combative approach traps them in the line of fire.
Gangs started their deadly retaliations just hours after Pullaro’s security minister shared photos showing Argentine prisoners crammed together on the floor, heads pressed against each other’s bare backs — a scene reminiscent of El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s harsh anti-gang crackdown.
“It’s a war between the state and the drug traffickers,” said Ezequiel, a 30-year-old employee at the gas station where Bussanich was killed. Ezequiel, who gave only his first name for fear of reprisals, said his mother has since begged him to quit. “We’re the ones paying the price.”
Even Milei's supporters have mixed feelings about the crackdown, including Germán Bussanich, the father of the slain gas station worker.
“They're putting on a show and we're facing the consequences," Bussanich told reporters.
A leafy city 300 kilometers (180 miles) northwest of Buenos Aires, Rosario is where revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara was born, Messi first kicked a soccer ball and the Argentine flag was first raised in 1812. But it most recently won notoriety because its homicide numbers are five times the national average.
Tucked into a bend in the Paraná River, Rosario's port morphed into Argentina's drug trafficking hub as regional crackdowns pushed the narcotics trade south and criminals started squirreling away cocaine in shipping containers spirited down the river to markets abroad. Although Rosario never suffered the car bombs and police assassinations gripping Mexico, Colombia and most recently Ecuador, the splintering of street gangs has fueled bloodshed.
“It’s not close to the violence in Mexico because we still have the deterrence capacity of the government in Argentina,” said Marcelo Bergman, a social scientist at the National University of Tres de Febrero in Argentina. “But we need to keep an eye on Rosario because the major threats come not so much from big cartels but when these groups proliferate and diversify.”
Drug traffickers keep a tight grip over Rosario's poor neighborhoods full of young men vulnerable to recruitment. One of them was Víctor Emanuel, a 17-year-old killed two years ago by rival gangsters in an area where street murals pay tribute to slain criminal leaders. No one was arrested.
“My neighbors know who’s responsible,” his mother, Gerónima Benítez, told the AP, her eyes shiny with tears. “I looked for help everywhere, I knocked on the doors of the judiciary, the government. No one answered.”
A fearful existence is all Benítez has ever known. But now, for the first time in Argentina, warring drug traffickers are banding together and terrorizing parts of the city previously considered safe.
Imprisoned gang leaders in Latin America have long run criminal enterprises remotely with the help of corrupt guards. But according to an indictment unveiled last week, incarcerated gang bosses in Argentina have been passing instructions on how to kill random civilians via family visits and video calls.
Court documents say the bosses paid underage hit men up to $450 to target four of the recent victims in Argentina’s third-largest city. The killing of Bussanich, two taxi drivers and a bus driver in less than a week in March, federal prosecutors say, “shattered the peace of an entire society."
Street emptied. Schools closed. Bus drivers picketed. People were too terrified to leave their homes.
“This violence is on another level,” 20-year-old Rodrigo Dominguez said from an intersection where a dangling banner demanded justice for another bus driver slain there weeks earlier. “You can’t go outside.”
Panic was still palpable in Rosario last week, as police swarmed the streets and normally bustling bars closed early for lack of customers. A diner managed by Messi’s family, a draw for fans, reported quiet nights and less profit. Women in one neighborhood said they carry 22‐caliber pistols. Analía Manso, 37, said she was too scared to send her children to school.
Pope Francis last month said he was praying for his countrymen in Rosario.
Assaults and public threats continue. This month, a sign appeared on a highway overpass warning Argentine Security Minister Patricia Bullrich that gangs would extend their offensive to Buenos Aires if the government doesn't back down.
Authorities have sought to reassure the public by sending hundreds of federal agents into Rosario. The AP spent a night with police last week as officers patrolled neighborhoods logging suspicious activity and setting up checkpoints.
Georgina Wilke, a 45-year-old Rosario officer in the explosives squad, said she welcomes federal intervention, including the military, to get crime under control. “We've been hit very hard,” Wilke said.
Omar Pereira, the provincial secretary of public security, promised the efforts represent a shift from failed tactics of the past.
“There were always pacts, implicit or explicit, between the state and criminals,” Pereira said, describing how authorities long looked the other way. “What’s the idea of this government? There is no pact."
But experts are skeptical a tough-on-crime approach will stop drug traffickers from buying control over Argentina’s police and prisons.
“Unless the government fixes its problems with corruption, the crackdown on prisons is unlikely to have any long-term effect,” said Christopher Newton, an investigator at Colombia-based research organization InSight Crime.
For years, Rosario's 1.3 million residents have watched warily as presidents and their promises come and go while the violence endures.
“It’s like a cancer that grows and grows,” said Benítez from her home, its windows protected by wrought-iron bars.
“We, on the outside, live in prison,” she said. “Those inside have everything.”
Brazil Supreme Court justice investigating Elon Musk over fake news and alleged obstruction
A crusading Brazilian Supreme Court justice included Elon Musk as a target in an ongoing investigation over the dissemination of fake news and opened a separate investigation late Sunday into the executive for alleged obstruction.
In his decision, Justice Alexandre de Moraes noted that Musk on Saturday began waging a public “disinformation campaign” regarding the top court's actions, and that Musk continued the following day — most notably with comments that his social media company X would cease to comply with the court's orders to block certain accounts.
“The flagrant conduct of obstruction of Brazilian justice, incitement of crime, the public threat of disobedience of court orders and future lack of cooperation from the platform are facts that disrespect the sovereignty of Brazil,” de Moraes wrote.
Musk will be investigated for alleged intentional criminal instrumentalization of X as part of an investigation into a network of people known as digital militias who allegedly spread defamatory fake news and threats against Supreme Court justices, according to the text of the decision. The new investigation will look into whether Musk engaged in obstruction, criminal organization and incitement.
Brazil’s political right has long characterized de Moraes as overstepping his bounds to clamp down on free speech and engage in political persecution. In the digital militias investigation, lawmakers from former President Jair Bolsonaro’s circle have been imprisoned and his supporters’ homes raided. Bolsonaro himself became a target of the investigation in 2021.
De Moraes' defenders have said his decisions, although extraordinary, are legally sound and necessary to purge social media of fake news as well as extinguish threats to Brazilian democracy — notoriously underscored by the Jan. 8, 2023, uprising in Brazil's capital that resembled the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection in the U.S. Capitol.
On Saturday, Musk — a self-declared free speech absolutist — wrote on X that the platform would lift all restrictions on blocked accounts and predicted that the move was likely to dry up revenue in Brazil and force the company to shutter its local office.
“But principles matter more than profit,” he wrote.
He later instructed users in Brazil to download a VPN to retain access if X was shut down and wrote that X would publish all of de Moraes' demands, claiming they violate Brazilian law.
“These are the most draconian demands of any country on Earth!” he later wrote.
Musk had not published de Moraes' demands as of late Sunday and prominent blocked accounts remained so, indicating X had yet to act based on Musk's previous pledges.
Moraes' decision warned against doing so, saying each blocked account that X eventually reactivates will entail a fine of 100,000 reais ($20,000) per day, and that those responsible will be held legally to account for disobeying a court order.
Brazil's attorney general wrote Saturday night that it was urgent for Brazil to regulate social media platforms. "We cannot live in a society in which billionaires domiciled abroad have control of social networks and put themselves in a position to violate the rule of law, failing to comply with court orders and threatening our authorities. Social peace is non-negotiable,” Jorge Messias wrote on X.
Brazil’s constitution was drafted after the 1964-1985 military dictatorship and contains a long list of aspirational goals and prohibitions against specific crimes such as racism and, more recently, homophobia. But freedom of speech is not absolute.
Death toll from heavy rains in southeastern Brazil jumps to 23
Heavy rains in Brazil this weekend have killed at least 23 people between the southeastern states of Rio de Janeiro and Espirito Santo.
Espirito Santos' state government said on Sunday that 15 people died and almost 5,000 are out of their homes due to heavy rains falling since Friday night. Rio authorities reported eight deaths on Saturday.
Thirteen deaths in Espirito Santo were registered in Mimoso do Sul, a countryside city 74 kilometers (46 miles) south of state capital Vitoria.
Rescue teams in both states had to stop their work Friday night because of risks of new landslides, with efforts restarting Saturday afternoon.
Mayors and governors of Brazil's Southeast region have alarmed residents of potential problems for the weekend since Thursday. A government warning for heavy rains in Espirito Santo state is valid until midnight local time.
Heavy rains kill at least 7 in Rio de Janeiro state, 4-year-old rescued after 16 hours under mud
Heavy rains in Rio de Janeiro state have killed at least seven people, authorities said Saturday, while a 4-year-old girl was rescued after more than 16 hours under mud.
The girl was pulled out alive in the city of Petropolis, 69 kilometers (43 miles) north of Rio. Rescue teams had to stop their work Friday night because of risks of new landslides in the region.
The girl's father died as a house was knocked to the ground. She survived because he protected her with his body, members of rescue teams said. Three more people died in the same place.
“My son was a warrior, he spent all that time there and saved his little daughter,” Roberto Napoleão, the grandfather of the girl, told journalists. “You can't imagine what it is like to lose a son. It hurts so much.”
Mayors in the state and Gov. Claudio Castro had alarmed residents of potential problems for the weekend since Thursday.
Firefighters have struggled to reach those hit by heavy rains, many of them residents of long endangered areas. Sniffing dogs were also part of the rescue efforts. Almost 100 people had been saved, authorities said.
Local authorities in Teresopolis, close to Petropolis, said that one person was still missing after the heavy rains.
Meteorologists say the heavy rains that hit Rio state are moving towards the neighboring state of Espirito Santo.
Venezuelan govt keeps arresting opponents as election nears
As Venezuela’s government would have it, President Nicolás Maduro and members of his inner circle have been the target of several conspiracies since last year that could have left them injured or worse.
Few details have been released about the alleged plots. But the government has cited them in the arrests of more than 30 people since January including a prominent human rights attorney and staffers of the leading opposition presidential candidate.
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Local and international nongovernment groups, the United Nations and foreign governments have described the crackdown as a pretext to stifle political opposition ahead of the July 28 president election in which Maduro, in power since 2013, will seek a new six-year term.
The latest arrests took place Wednesday shortly before the country's top prosecutor announced arrest warrants for nine people working with Machado's campaign whom he accused of participating in one plot.
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Oscar Murillo, general coordinator for the Venezuelan human rights group Provea, said officials are coordinating actions of the police, military and civic groups to tamp down on any anti-government activity.
“This has translated into greater political repression and a deepening of the policy of persecution that seeks to break civil society at a time when perhaps the ideal thing would be to be talking about the public policies needed to reverse poverty or inequality in Venezuela,” Murillo said.
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Attorney General Tarek William Saab has described the plots variously as aimed at attacking military installations, killing Maduro and other officials and de-stabilizing the country. He has publicly presented alleged confessions, planning documents, laptops and other items he has characterized as evidence.
Saab on Wednesday accused the nine members of the opposition, including Machado's campaign manager, of being part of a “destabilizing” plot that included demonstrations, a media campaign and plans to attack military barracks. He said two of the nine people, Dignora Hernández and Henry Alviarez — Machado's political coordinator and national coordinator respectively — had already been arrested.
The arrests of Hernández and Alviarez brings to at least six the number of Machado staffers who are in custody over their alleged participation in the plots the government claims to have foiled.
Allowing free-market proponent Machado to run in the July election would offer Venezuela its best chance of a competitive race because no other candidate has anywhere near the level of support, money or political machinery to challenge Maduro. But the self-described socialist government has barred her from office for 15 years — an administrative order upheld by the country's top court in January.
Other members of Venezuela's opposition have urged Machado to stand aside for another contender, but she has insisted on continuing her candidacy — perhaps hoping that international pressure could force Venezuela's establishment to relent on the ban.
“If the regime believes that with these actions they are going to isolate me, let me be clear: My team is Venezuela,” she told reporters Wednesday. She added that her campaign continues organizing across the country and expects “much more than just well wishes” from the international community.
Machado defended her staff, stressing that all allegations against them are false.
The government has not made public any charging documents detailing allegations against the dozens of defendants in the conspiracy cases. Under Venezuelan law, court hearings are open, but in practice people, journalists and sometimes even the defendants' counsels of choice are barred from the courtroom.
Maduro has alleged the U.S. government is behind the plans to assassinate him.
Among the dozens of people taken into custody earlier this year over accusations stemming from the alleged plots is also human rights attorney Rocío San Miguel, whom Saab has identified as a “spy” for one of the conspiracies. Saab has also accused her of having more than a dozen maps that highlighted sensitive military locations that she should not have known about.
“Should the state lower its guard and let these operations go forward, to bathe the country in blood?” Saab said days after San Miguel's Feb. 9 arrest.
San Miguel’s attorney, Juan Gonzalez, said he has not been allowed to see her since her arrest but that she denied all allegations during an initial hearing.
Wednesday’s detentions came hours after an independent panel of experts investigating human rights violations in Venezuela told the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva that Maduro's government had increased repression efforts against real or perceived opponents ahead of this year’s presidential election.
“The mission confirms that, as has happened in the past, the authorities invoke real or fictitious conspiracies to intimidate, detain and prosecute people who oppose or criticize the government,” panel head Marta Valiñas told the council, which authorized the investigative mission. “At the same time, the Attorney General’s Office continues to operate as part of the government’s repressive machinery to grant the appearance of legality to the persecution of critical voices."
The panel last year reported that Maduro's government was using defamatory campaigns, detentions, arbitrary criminal proceedings and even torture to curtail democratic freedoms ahead of the election.
“In some cases, the acts of torture or ill-treatment were intended to extract fabricated confessions or false statements," the panel said in its report.
Maduro became interim president in March 2013 after the death of charismatic leader Hugo Chávez's. He narrowly won election weeks later and was re-elected in 2018 in an electoral process widely criticized as fraudulent.
The country has not been without conspiracies against the government in the past.
Less than three months after his re-election, Maduro tied opposition leaders to what the government described as an assassination attempt against the president in which drones with explosives detonated when he was delivering a speech live on television. In 2020, his government foiled an attempted armed invasion to overthrow him, an effort that ended with six insurgents dead and two former Green Berets behind bars.
The latest wave of arrests threatens to unravel a political accord negotiated last year among the U.S. government, the opposition faction it backs and Maduro.
The October agreement focused on conditions for a free and fair election and earned Maduro some relief from U.S. economic sanctions on the country’s oil, gas and mining sectors. But hopes for a more level playing field began fading shortly afterward, and the U.S. already reversed the relief on the gold-mining industry due to what it considers Maduro’s noncompliance.
The administration of President Joe Biden has given Maduro until late April to comply with the deal or expect an end to the remaining relief, which would hurt the country’s oil-dependent economy. The administration confirmed to The Associated Press on Thursday that it has not changed the April deadline.
Brian Nichols, a U.S. assistant secretary of state, earlier this month told attendees of a Washington-based think tank panel that the “incentives” the U.S. and other countries have put forth "have not been sufficient to motivate" Maduro to move toward a competitive election. On Wednesday, he called for the immediate release of “all those unjustly detained.”
“Maduro’s escalating attacks on civil society and political actors are totally inconsistent with Barbados Accord commitments but will not stifle the democratic aspirations of the Venezuelan people,” Nichols tweeted.
Gangs unleash new attacks on upscale areas in Haiti's capital, with at least a dozen killed nearby
Gangs attacked two upscale neighborhoods in Haiti’s capital early Monday in a rampage that left at least a dozen people dead in surrounding areas.
Gunmen looted homes in the communities of Laboule and Thomassin before sunrise, forcing residents to flee as some called radio stations pleading for police. The neighborhoods had remained largely peaceful despite a surge in violent gang attacks across Port-au-Prince that began on Feb. 29.
An Associated Press photographer saw the bodies of at least 12 men strewn on the streets of Pétionville, located just below the mountainous communities of Laboule and Thomassin.
Crowds began gathering around the victims. One was lying face up on the street surrounded by a scattered deck of cards and another found face down inside a pick-up truck known as a “tap-tap” that operates as a taxi. A woman at one of the scenes collapsed and had to be held by others after learning that a relative of hers was killed.
“Abuse! This is abuse!” cried out one Haitian man who did not want to be identified as he raised his arms and stood near one of the victims. “People of Haiti! Wake up!” An ambulance arrived shortly afterward and made its way through Pétionville, collecting the victims.
“We woke up this morning to find bodies in the street in our community of Pétionville,” said Douce Titi, who works at the mayor's office. “Ours is not that kind of community. We will start working to remove those bodies before the children start walking by to go to school and the vendors start to arrive.”
It was too late for some, though. A relative of one of the victims hugged a young boy close to his chest, with his head turned away from the scene.
The most recent attacks raised concerns that gang violence would not cease despite Prime Minister Ariel Henry announcing nearly a week ago that he would resign once a transitional presidential council is created, a move that gangs had been demanding.
Gangs have long opposed Henry, saying he was never elected by the people as they blame him for deepening poverty, but critics of gangs accuse them of trying to seize power for themselves or for unidentified Haitian politicians.
Also on Monday, Haiti’s power company announced that four substations in the capital and elsewhere “were destroyed and rendered completely dysfunctional.” As a result, swaths of Port-au-Prince were without power, including the Cite Soleil slum, the Croix-des-Bouquets community and a hospital.
The company said criminals also seized important documents, cables, inverters, batteries and other items.
As gang violence continues unabated, Caribbean leaders have been helping with the creation of a transitional council. It was originally supposed to have seven members with voting powers. But one political party in Haiti rejected the seat they were offered, and another is still squabbling over who should be nominated.
Meanwhile, the deployment of a U.N.-backed Kenyan police force to fight gangs in Haiti has been delayed, with the East African country saying it would wait until the transitional council is established.
In a bid to curb the relentless violence, Haiti's government announced Sunday that it was extending a nighttime curfew through March 20.
Venezuela orders UN human rights office to close, accusing it of anti-government activity
Venezuela’s government on Thursday ordered the local United Nations office on human rights to suspend operations and gave its staff 72 hours to leave, accusing it of assisting coup plotters and terrorist groups.
Foreign Affairs Minister Yván Gil announced the decision at a news conference in Caracas, which came amid heightened concerns that the government is repressing real or perceived opponents in an election year. Nearly a week ago, Venezuela detained a prominent human rights attorney and members of her family, setting off a wave of criticism inside and outside the country.
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Gil said the local technical advisory office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, authorized in 2019, was supposed “to improve, to optimize,” human rights. Instead, he said, it had become an “international sounding board to maintain a discourse against the Bolivarian government and against the Venezuelan people."
The office had “become the private law firm of coup plotters and terrorist groups that permanently conspire against the country," Gil said, though he did not show any evidence or point to a specific example of that alleged activity.
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Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the U.N. rights office of the high commissioner, based in Geneva, Switzerland, said the agency regretted the decision and is evaluating next steps.
“We continue to engage with the authorities and other stakeholders,” Shamdasani said. “Our guiding principle has been and remains the promotion and protection of the human rights of the people of Venezuela.”
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The agency on Tuesday had expressed “deep concern” over the detention of Rocio San Miguel, a prominent human rights attorney in Venezuela. In a tweet, the office urged “her immediate release” and respect for her right to legal defense.
San Miguel was taken into custody Friday at the airport near Caracas while she and her daughter awaited a flight to Miami. Authorities did not acknowledge her detention until Sunday, and as of Wednesday, her attorney had not been allowed to meet with her.
About an hour before Gil’s announcement, the U.N. agency called for the respect of “due process guarantees, including right to defense” in her case.
Attorney General Tarek William Saab earlier in the week said San Miguel was being held at the Helicoide prison, an infamous institution for political prisoners. She is facing charges of treason, conspiracy and terrorism.
San Miguel’s daughter, ex-husband, two brothers and former partner also were detained following her arrest. Of them, only her former partner, Alejandro Jose Gonzales de Canales Plaza, remains in custody. He is facing charges of revealing state and military secrets and obstruction of justice.
Gil told reporters that President Nicolás Maduro agreed to cooperate with the high commissioner in September 2019 to establish the local technical advisory office in Caracas to “show the world the advances in human rights in Venezuela.”
He said the office had 13 staff members as of Thursday.
Months before Maduro's 2019 decision, the high commissioner at the time, Michelle Bachelet, had published a scathing report detailing widespread human rights abuses at the hands of Venezuelan government security forces.
The U.N. Human Rights Council had also voted to set up an independent fact-finding mission to look into allegations of killings, disappearances, arbitrary detention and torture in Venezuela.
The fact-finding mission has never been allowed to visit the country. But its investigations have documented, among other things, that the government intensified efforts to curtail democratic freedoms ahead of this year's coming presidential election. The mission accused the government of using threats, surveillance and harassment against politicians, labor leaders, journalists, human rights defenders and other real or perceived opponents.
In addition to the U.N., 200 non-governmental organizations in Venezuela, the European Union, and the Canadian and United States governments have expressed concerns over the San Miguel's detention.
San Miguel's detention is part of the Venezuelan government’s policies of “criminalization and persecution of the work of promoting and defending human rights and closing civic space in Venezuela," the Venezuelan organizations said in a statement Monday. Both are based on the idea that social activists and human rights defenders are “internal enemies” who participate in "alleged conspiracies and attempts at ‘assassinations,’” it said.
San Miguel’s detention happened more than three months after the U.S. government rolled back some economic sanctions against Venezuela following Maduro’s commitment to hold an election in the second half of 2024, lift bans preventing adversaries from holding office and release political prisoners. His promises are part of an agreement signed in the Caribbean island of Barbados between his representatives and those of a faction of the opposition.
Since it was signed, Maduro's government has been testing its limits. It has blocked the candidacy of the winner of the opposition's presidential primary and arrested numerous perceived or actual adversaries, including campaign staffers of the blocked candidate. It has also repeatedly accused members of the opposition of having links to various plots to kill Maduro and his inner circle between last May and January without showing any evidence.
The government also only released about 20 political prisoners. The Venezuela-based organization Foro Penal tallied 263 political prisoners in the South American country as of Thursday.
Human Rights Watch on Thursday condemned the government's decision to suspend the activities of the U.N. office, describing its presence in Venezuela as “crucial.”
“Amid a new wave of repression, governments in the region should call for its reestablishment," Juanita Goebertus, Americas director for Human Rights Watch, tweeted.
Forest fires rage on in central Chile, killing at least 112 people over 3 days
Firefighters wrestled Sunday with massive forest fires that broke out in central Chile two days earlier, as officials extended curfews in cities most heavily affected by the blazes and said at least 112 people had been killed.
The fires burned with the highest intensity around the city of Viña del Mar, where a famous botanical garden founded in 1931 was destroyed by the flames Sunday. At least 1,600 people were left without homes.
Several neighborhoods on the eastern edge of Viña del Mar were devoured by flames and smoke, trapping some people in their homes. Officials said 200 people were reported missing in Viña del Mar and the surrounding area. The city of 300,000 people is a popular beach resort and also hosts a well-known music festival during the southern hemisphere's summer.
On Sunday morning, Chilean President Gabriel Boric visited the town of Quilpé, which was also heavily affected by the fires and reported that 64 people had been killed. Late Sunday, Chile's Forensic Medicine Service updated the confirmed death toll to 112 people.
Boric said the death toll could rise as rescue workers search through homes that have collapsed. Some of those arriving in hospitals were also in critical condition.
Rodrigo Mundaca, the governor of the Valparaiso region, where Viña del Mar and other affected cities are located, said Sunday he believed some of the fires could have been intentionally caused, echoing a theory that had also been mentioned Saturday by Boric.
“These fires began in four points that lit up simultaneously,” Mundaca said. “As authorities we will have to work rigorously to find who is responsible.”
The fires around Viña del Mar began in mountainous forested areas that are hard to reach. But they have moved into densely populated neighborhoods on the city's periphery despite efforts by Chilean authorities to slow down the flames.
On Saturday, Boric said that unusually high temperatures, low humidity and high wind speeds were making it difficult to control the wildfires in central Chile, which have already burnt through 8,000 hectares (30 square miles) of forest and urban areas.
Boric flew over some of the areas burned by the fires Sunday and visited a school that has been turned into a shelter for the displaced. He said that a presidential vacation home on the shores of Viña del Mar that is surrounded by large gardens would be temporarily converted into a leisure center for the children of families affected by the fires.
The president declared two days of national mourning.
“All of Chile is suffering” Boric said. “But we will stand up once again.”
Officials asked people in areas affected by the fires to evacuate their homes as quickly as possible, while those farther from the fires were told to stay at home in order to facilitate the transit of fire engines and ambulances.
Curfews were declared in Viña del Mar and the neighboring cities of Quilpé and Villa Alemana as part of an effort to prevent looting.
The fires broke out during a week of record high temperatures in central Chile. Over the past two months, the El Niño weather pattern has caused droughts and high temperatures in western South America that have also increased the risk of forest fires.
At least 46 reported dead in Chile as forest fires move into densely populated central areas
Intense forest fires burning around a densely populated area of central Chile have caused at least 46 deaths, Chile's pesident said Saturday evening, and officials said at least 1,100 homes had been destroyed.
In a nationally televised address, President Gabriel Boric warned that the death toll could worsen as four large fires burn in the region of Valparaiso, where firefighters have struggled to reach the most threatened neighborhoods.
Boric urged Chileans to cooperate with rescue workers.
“If you are told to evacuate don't hesitate to do it,” he said. “The fires are advancing fast and climatic conditions have made them difficult to control. There are high temperatures, strong winds and low humiditiy.”
Interior Minister Carolina Tohá said earlier Saturday that 92 forest fires were burning in the center and south of the country, where temperatures have been unusually high this week.
The deadliest of the fires were in the Valparaíso region, where authorities urged thousands of people to evacuate their homes.
In areas farther away from the fires, meanwhile, residents were told to stay at home so that fire engines, ambulances and other emergency vehicles can get about on the roads with greater ease.
Tohá said two fires near the towns of Quilpué and Villa Alemana had burned through at least 8,000 hectares (19,770 acres) since Friday. One of the fires was threatening the coastal resort town of Viña del Mar, where some neighborhoods had already been hit hard.
In Villa Independencia, a hillside neighborhood on the eastern edge of the town, several blocks of homes and businesses were destroyed. Burned cars with broken windows lined the streets, which were covered in ash.
“I've been here 32 years, and never imagined this would happen,” said Rolando Fernández, one of the residents who lost his home.
He said he first saw the fire burning on a nearby hill Friday afternoon and within 15 minutes the area was engulfed in flames and smoke, forcing everyone to run for their lives.
“I've worked my whole life, and now I'm left with nothing,” Fernández said.
Three shelters were set up in the Valparaíso region, and 19 helicopters and more than 450 firefighters were brought into the area to help battle the blazes, Tohá said.
The fires were burning on mountains that are hard to reach, such as neighborhoods built precariously on the edge of Viña del Mar.
Officials reported power blackouts as a result of the fire, and Tohá said that in the Valparaíso region, four hospitals and three nursing homes for the elderly had to be evacuated. The fire also destroyed two bus terminals, the interior minister said.
The El Niño weather pattern has caused droughts and hotter than usual temperatures along the west of South America this year, increasing the risk of forest fires. In January, more than 17,000 hectares (42,000 acres) of forests were destroyed in Colombia by fires that followed several weeks of dry weather.
A mudslide in Colombia has killed at least 34 people and injured dozens of others
The death toll of a mudslide in western Colombia rose to 34 on Saturday, authorities said.
The mudslide struck a busy municipal road Friday in a mountainous area connecting the cities of Quibdo and Medellin.
The National Disaster Risk Management Unit had said initially in a statement that at least 18 people were killed. The agency also said at least 35 injured people were taken to hospitals.
The new death toll was reported by the Chocó Governor’s Office, where a unified command post was established to coordinate search and rescue operations. In a statement, it said that 17 bodies had been identified and that officials were trying to identify another 17. The Prosecutor’s Office confirmed the death toll.
Earlier, Colombian Vice President Francia Márquez said in a message posted on the social network X that a search continued “for people who remain trapped under the landslide.” She said several children were among the victims, but gave no number.
The risk management unit didn’t specify what could have caused the mudslide, but the Defense Department reported Friday night that it has been raining in the area, making it difficult for rescue operations.
A video posted on X apparently showed the moment of the mudslide, when the side of a mountain slid over the highway, covering some cars. The Associated Press couldn’t verify its authenticity.
President Gustavo Petro tweeted Friday that his government would provide all support needed in what he described as a “horrible tragedy."