Con several injured guards finished a control carried out on itinerant commerce this Wednesday afternoon at the Ñuñoa station on Line 6 of the Santiago Metro.
The incident occurred around 8:00 p.m., when two Metro guards began a control of the street vendors, at which point other vendors arrived carrying blunt objects and began to attack the workers.
Total, 8 workers ended up injured by the attacks, including a guard who was left with a closed TEC and a cut on one ear, after being hit on the head by a traveling merchant with an iron, for which he was transferred to a care center.
In addition, a supervisor who was also hit on the head and decompensated at the scene, although he was not finally transferred to a health center. Also, five other guards and a second supervisor were beaten in different parts.
The leader of the Metro Union 5, Luis Cortés, commented that when the guards carried out a check on the street vendors at the Ñuñoa station, they called other merchants from the Universidad de Chile station on line 1, who attacked the Metro workers. .
Cortés called on the authorities to consider the situation of the service guards and affirmed that mafias have formed in the street trade.
“The call that we make as a directive is to Metro and the government authorities, the Ministry of the Interior, to see our situation, here we private security guards are workers and we are at the service of citizens. Citizens ask us to get rid of street vendors, but unfortunately mafias have formed here,” said Cortés.
So far, no arrests have been reported for these attacks.
We repudiate the attacks suffered by 8 people from our security team, who were beaten with iron by street vendors at the Ñuñoa station. 2 of them were taken to a health center with serious injuries due to blows to the head and cuts. https://t.co/OPUXb4MAtK
— Santiago Metro – #NewTravel (@metrodesantiago) May 19, 2022
Metro repudiates attacks
“Metro de Santiago issued a brief statement on its Twitter account, where it criticized what happened and announced legal action against those responsible for attacking the workers.
We repudiate the attacks suffered by 8 people from our security team, who were beaten with iron by street vendors at the Ñuñoa station. 2 of them were transferred with serious injuries to a health center due to blows to the head and cuts, ”said the transport service.
“We will give all the support to our workers and we will file all the corresponding legal actions”They added in the statement.