SANTIAGO (Reuters) – A fire in an informal immigrant neighborhood in the city of Coronel in southern Chile left 14 dead, most of them children, on Monday night, according to local authorities.
Hugo Cuevas, the chief prosecutor of Coronel, said the victims appear to be undocumented Venezuelan immigrants.
“This is information that is being worked on that we have to confirm,” Cuevas said on the X social media platform.
Reports have been commissioned to establish the origin of the fire, which, according to preliminary information, was caused by a handmade stove in a house that only had one access point.
During an event about the country’s new proposed constitution in Santiago on Monday, Chilean President Gabriel Boric lamented the fire, saying “it would be good to ask ourselves, in our own speeches and in our actions, how we treat those people who died yesterday.”
The government arranged for an official delegation to travel to Coronel to investigate the fire and arrange necessary aid, Interior Minister Carolina Toha said on X.
(Report by Natalia Ramos and Fabian Cambero; Writing by Alexander Villegas; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)
