Churches burn during violent protests in Chile
Tens of thousands of Chileans protested in the streets of Santiago over the weekend demanding government reform.
It marked the one-year anniversary of mass protests that left over 30 dead and thousands more injured.
What started as largely peaceful rallies on Sunday (October 18) soon devolved into violence as demonstrators threw rocks and Molotov cocktails at police, who answered with water cannons and tear gas.
Even churches were set ablaze by vandals as rioting and looting gripped the city by nightfall.
Earlier in the day people began gathering at demonstrations downtown and cities throughout Chile, which gained in size and fervor as the afternoon wore on.
Many protesters waved signs and homemade rainbow-colored banners asking Chileans to vote "yes" on a referendum to scrap the country's dictatorship-era Constitution.
That was a key demand of last year's protests, which raged on for nearly two months as people across the country called for reforms in healthcare, education and the pension system.
And as the violence resurfaced late on Sunday evening, Chile's Interior Minister Victor Perez praised the peaceful rallies while blasting the late-night mayhem.
He instead called on Chileans to settle their differences by voting in the upcoming referendum on October 25.
