Chile: Mapuche Woman and Daughter Found Dead in Araucania

The Public Prosecutor's Office of the Araucania region confirmed the discovery of the bodies a woman and her daughter at a Mapuche community on Friday.

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The bodies of 53-year-old Rosales Quiñilen and her daughter, 17-year-old Rosa Quintana Rosales, were found by relatives in the Juan Pinoleo community, in the Ercilla commune.

Prosecutor Enrique Vasquez has said that homicide detectives will be investigating, with police preliminarily reporting that the two women, who were found hanging, did not register any obvious bodily injury attributable to third parties.

Vasquez has ordered an autopsy of the two bodies as the cell phones of the victims were taken. Investigators will search for information to determine what could have happened though the relationship between the community and the Chilean state puts the impartiality of such an investigation into question.

The Mapuche Indigenous community has in recent weeks mobilized in solidarity with Mapuche political prisoners who face an additional risk to their health amid the COVID-19 breakout inside Chile’s penitentiaries. They’ve also been the target of attacks by right-wing mobs aligned with Sebastian Piñera's administration.

It was reported on Friday night that two Mapuche prisoners who had entered into a ‘dry’ hunger strike had been transported to a hospital following weeks of a liquid-only hunger strike.

Among Chile’s political prisoners, is Mapuche Machi Celestino Cordova, whose health has deteriorated substantially.

Cordova struggle has caught around the country the attention of social movements who have joined the call demanding that the Chilean state respect the rights of Indigenous people and their territory.