MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Chile: Boric announces first child due in June

Boric has been dating professional basketballer Paula Carrasco at least since September

Chilean President Gabriel Boric Font announced through his Instagram account that he will become a father for the first time after conceiving a child with professional basketballer Paula Carrasco. He added to the posting an image of an ultrasound. “We will give the best of us so that the Chile we live in will be fairer and happier. We love you,” the head of state also wrote in a message to his child, due in June next year.

Boric started his relationship with Carrasco earlier this year after splitting with former First Lady Irina Karamanos in November last year.

The 30-year-old mother of a 6-year-old son works at the Environment Ministry in the Mitigation and Transparency Office of the Climate Change Division, a position she has held since before meeting the President.

Carrasco is a native of Valparaíso, a basketball player for Sportiva Italiana, and a national team member, having participated in the Santiago Pan American Games in 2023. She has a degree in environmental chemistry from the University of Chile and is actively supporting Chile's greenhouse gas inventory.

The couple attended a public event together back in September, where they danced, and shared a kiss in front of hundreds of attendees. Boric had been married to the anthropologist Karamanos for almost five years.

The announcement comes at a time when Boric's government is under scrutiny following the Manuel Monsalve sex scandal that brought the former Undersecretary of the Interior to jail for the alleged rape of a female employee, followed by last week's admission by the head of state of a complaint against him for disseminating intimate images of a former colleague dating back over ten years. Boric denied the charges and claimed he was the victim of “systematic harassment.”