Gunmen killed seven people Tuesday night in a home on the outskirts of Medellin, Colombia’s second largest city, authorities said.
“Around 7:30 p.m., here in the rural area of the municipality of Rionegro, an unfortunate incident occurred where seven people were murdered,” Colonel Carlos Andrés Martínez Romero, commander of the Antioquia department Police, said in a video sent to the media. (northwest), where the crime occurred.
The massacre occurred when “ten subjects carrying long weapons broke into a house” in an area known as Cabeceras, about 20 kilometers from Medellín, said Martínez, who offered a reward equivalent to about $12,000 for information about those responsible.
The military deployed a “lock plan in the municipalities surrounding Cabeceras in order to locate those who carried out this violent act,” indicated the seventh division of the army, on the social network X.
So far the authorities have not provided information on the identity or age of the deceased. The attackers fled in a convoy of several cars and motorcycles, according to press reports.
Images released by the Rionegro mayor’s office show several forensic experts working in the rain on an unpaved road.
“The public order situation that exists in Eastern Antioquia is regrettable,” the mayor of the municipality, Jorge Rivas, expressed on the social network X.
“I have convened a security council to stop this wave of violence,” the president added.
So far this year, authorities have arrested several drug trafficking bosses in Rionegro and its surroundings.
Several drug gangs have a presence in the region, including the Clan del Golfo, the most powerful in the country, according to the independent organization Mesa de Derechos Humanos del Oriente de Antioquia.
Colombia is the largest producer of cocaine worldwide, according to the UN.
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