SANTIAGO (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd October, 2019) Police have used tear gas and water cannons against protesters who remained in the streets in Chile's capital amid curfew, a Sputnik correspondent reports.
Over a thousand demonstrators gathered in central Plaza Baquedano (formerly Plaza Italia) on Tuesday. Some of them started to leave ahead of the announced curfew; police began dispersing the rest of the protesters using tear gas and water cannons.
Earlier, the Chilean authorities announced that a curfew would come into effect on Tuesday evening in Santiago, as well as in Conception and Valparaiso. The curfews will be in place until early Wednesday morning.
According to the Sputnik correspondent, some of the protesters in Santiago returned to the Baquedano square after police efforts to disperse the crowd.
A state of emergency was announced by Chilean President Sebastian Pinera on October 18, when protests against planned subway fare increases turned violent, with demonstrators setting fire to subway stations and buses.
By October 20 the death toll from the protests, which started in the first week of the month, had reached seven people.
Pinera said over the weekend that he was suspending the planned subway fare increase, but riots continued in the capital Santiago and in Valparaiso and Concepcion.
