Mapuche Communities Complain About Lack of Assistance, Tents, Feel Abandoned by Chilean Government

Mapuche communities are complaining about the lack of food, water, tents, cloths, gas and electricity. They feel marginalized and abandoned by their own government. The leaders are wondering whether this treatment is due to their past and ongoing fights and claims of ancestral land. Find out more about the plight of the central-south regions Mapuche Indigenous people..... Please do not let the Mapuche people go without despite their struggles to get heard! Send assistance to the remote areas of their communities! They need shelter, clothes and food just like any Chileans! Volunteers and humanitarian organizations can focu on these vast areas now.


"Chile´s indigenous Mapuche community is looking abroad for help in the aftermath of the Feb. 27 earthquake, as some members of the community say they feel marginalized and abandoned by the country´s government, reports The Santiago Times.

According to the UKL-based organization Mapuche International Link (MIL), there has been very little, if any, food, tents, cloths, water, gas or electricity in the rural areas of the central-south regions of the country inhabited by ethnic Mapuches.

This is in contradiction with official claims that the situation in Chile is under control and improving for most citizens.

“The Mapuches face ceaseless repression of their political and ancestral rights. As such, they have a reason to worry that their needs will be put at the bottom of the state´s intervention list,” says MIL vice-secretary Nina Dean.

According to Mapuche activist Miguel Cheuqueman, government aid arrived to the municipalities, such as Tirua, Canete, Arauco and Lebu. But it was not distributed to isolated Mapuche communities.

“The municipalities probably don´t have sufficient means. However, we suspect that the lack of will also plays role,” Cheuqueman, who represents the regional Mapuche group La Identidad Territorial Lafkenche, told the Santiago Times.

There have been many conflicts between the state and the Mapuche community in the La Araucania region in the past years, mostly over land.

Feeling that they are left alone, Mapuche civil society organizations are taking initiative into their hands, collecting donations and distributing them into rural areas. Still, they lack resources that the state has at its disposal......