The President of Peru declared a state of emergency at the borders on Wednesday April 26 and ordered the deployment of the army to reinforce checkpoints and block migrants traveling from Chile.
Hundreds of migrants who have lived in Chile, mainly from Haiti and Venezuela according to the United Nations, are trying to leave the country and have been stranded for weeks at the border between the Peruvian city of Tacna (south) and Arica, in northern Chile.
As Chile tightens migration controls, many say they want to return home or move further north to the United States.
Soldiers deployed to reinforce the police at border posts
The Peruvian government has already sent 200 police to reinforce border crossings in a bid, it says, to curb transnational crime.
On Wednesday, President Dina Boluarte said soldiers would be deployed to reinforce police at border crossings with Chile, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador and Colombia. “The national police will maintain control of internal order with the support of the armed forces,” she told reporters.
The government did not specify what the state of emergency would entail in terms of restrictions on individual and public freedoms, or how long it would remain in place.
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