A six-year-old boy was shot in the femur of his right leg this Friday inside his grandmother’s house in San Joaquín, in the south-central sector of Santiago. The child was taken by an uncle to the Exequiel González Cortés Pediatric Hospital, where he was admitted out of life-threatening condition — the bullet did not have an exit wound — and remains hospitalized with injuries of reserved nature. Carabineros and the Public Ministry are investigating the origin of the bullets. The Southern Metropolitan Prosecutor’s Office has reported that it is an “apparent confrontation between criminal gangs.” The case occurred less than 24 hours after the one that took place Thursday night in Lo Espejo, where a 12-year-old boy was injured in his leg as a result of a shooting while walking to a store.
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The mother of the six-year-old boy, who was working and had left him in the care of his grandmother, arrived at the health center when the child was already admitted. The woman did not file a formal complaint, but Carabineros agents did so ex officio. The Police Investigation Section (SIP) was put in charge of the initial investigation by order of the Public Ministry. Meanwhile, the ballistic evidence collected has been sent to the Carabineros Criminalistics Laboratory.
The Lo Espejo case, in the southern sector of the capital, occurred in the area known as Barrio Chino, during a shootout between rival gangs around 7:00 p.m. In addition to the 12-year-old boy, a 50-year-old man waiting at a bus stop after getting off the bus was also injured in his right leg. Both were taken to health centers — the child to the Exequiel González Cortés Hospital and the adult to the Barros Luco Hospital — and remain stable. “This happened while they were on the public road and, according to preliminary information, it would be an exchange between rival gangs,” explained a Carabineros agent. The investigation of witnesses and the search for those responsible were assigned to the SIP and the Criminalistics Laboratory. The mayor of Lo Espejo, Javiera Reyes (Communist Party), stated on Mega that the incident corresponds to “a new phase” of a pattern of violence that the municipality has been experiencing “for days” and that was reported to the Ministry of Public Security.
Both episodes reactivate a discussion that the Children’s Ombudsman has consistently raised over the past year: although at least 31 minors died from firearms in 2025 — a decrease compared to the 51 recorded in 2024 — the Metropolitan Region continues to concentrate the majority of these incidents, with 72% of the cases. The agency has insisted that many of these victims were not involved in the criminal activity that led to the incident but were circumstantially present at the location, as happened with the minor in Lo Espejo when he was heading to a store and also with the boy in San Joaquín, shot inside his own home.
The series of events occurs while security remains the main concern of Chileans. 73% feel “a lot or quite a bit” of fear of being a crime victim — three points more than in May — and 61% believe that state institutions are being overwhelmed by crime, according to the latest Cadem survey on the subject.
