Three dead, including a police officer, and at least eight injuredleft the explosion of a car bomb on Friday in an area of southwestern Colombia where a FARC dissident group called the Central Staff (EMC) operates, authorities reported on Saturday.
“An explosive charge located in a private vehicle was activated, which caused the death of the police officer Santiago Moreno Ríos together with a merchant and a man,” said the Ministry of Defense through its account on the social network X.
He added that The explosion injured two other officers and six civilians.
The government of the department of Nariño (southwestern Colombia), where the incident occurred, in turn reported three dead and nine injured.
On Friday there was also an attack by rebels in the department of César (Caribbean), which left one police officer dead and another injured.
President Gustavo Petrowho took office in August 2022, expressed solidarity with the victims’ families of both attacks and said that “those who chose the path of war over peace will continue to bear the full weight of the law.”
The attacks occur a few hours before delegates from the Colombian government begin negotiating on Monday in Caracas with representatives of the FARC dissident known as Second Marquetalia, another faction that, like the EMC, deserted the peace agreement with the guerrilla signed in 2016.
He car bomb attack In Nariño it was registered in the municipality of Taminango, where the Franco Benavides front of the EMC has a “criminal incidence”, whose leader would be alias ‘Mario’, the Defense portfolio specified.
“We vehemently reject the terrorist act”expressed by X the departmental governor, Luis Alfonso Escobar.
“We will make the necessary efforts to offer the greatest possible financial reward, so that those responsible for the atrocious act” are identified and judged, he added in a statement.
Petro, the first leftist president in the history of Colombia, began negotiations in 2022 with the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Caracas, City of Mexico and Havana.
He also set up a table with the EMC, which is part of the dissidents of the guerrilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)which became a political party after pacification.
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The Colombian government has been in talks with the EMC since October last year, before the group split in two in April. Half of the guerrillasled by alias ‘Iván Mordisco’, stepped aside, while the other 50 percent remain in dialogue.
