Three police officers were killed on Saturday in southern Chile during what President Gabriel Boric called a cowardly attack that led him to declare three days of national mourning.

The attack occurred in the municipality of Canete, in Arauco province, when the officers responded to three false emergency calls, authorities said.

The officers were attacked in their vehicle with heavy-caliber weapons and burned, the authorities said.

The region where the attack took place is home to long-running tensions between the state and the South American country's Mapuche Indigenous people.

"This morning we received the serious and painful news of an attack in the province of Arauco, in which three police officers were killed. We coordinated immediate actions to respond to this cowardly attack," Boric said in a message via social media platform X, before traveling to where the attack took place.

"We will find the whereabouts of the perpetrators of this terrible crime," he said.

  - Reuters