A human rights medal recently presented to Sting by the Chilean government was stolen from the British singer's dressing room before a concert on Tuesday in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The Gabriela Mistral Medal was included in a bag of personal items taken while Sting was onstage for a preshow sound check, according to Reuters. The former Police singer continued with the show, however, drawing 26,000 fans to the Velez soccer stadium.

Buenos Aires police officials told a local newspaper they would tighten security at the stadium in time for a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert there next week.

Sting was given the Gabriela Mistral Medal, named after the country's 1945 Nobel Prize-winning poet, in a ceremony on Monday in Santiago, Chile.

In the past two decades, Sting has met with rights groups in Chile, along with leaders of an organization representing nonconformists who disappeared during the 17-year dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. He has performed at benefit concerts in Chile, and wrote the 1987 song "They Dance Alone" (RealAudio excerpt), a tribute to women who lost their husbands to repression during the Pinochet rule.