At least 14 people were killed and at least 38 wounded, including five children, after a bomb tore apart a busy road in southwestern Colombia, according to local authorities. The incident was part of a “wave” of terror attacks this weekend, Colombian officials also said, as deadly violence resurges in the country.
“An explosive device was detonated on the Pan-American Highway, in the El Túnel sector of Cajibío, in an indiscriminate attack against the civilian population,” said Cauca Governor Octavio Guzmán in a post on X. Guzmán later added in an update that Colombia’s Minister of Defense Pedro Sánchez was at the scene of the explosion to help “coordinate rescue efforts.” Authorities are “initiating a national-level security council to address this serious situation,” the governor said.
Read more…
Source: CNN News
Sign up for the Counter-IED Report Newsletters
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox
Related:
- Brazil Supports Demining Actions In Colombian Territory
November 21, 2019
Colombia is one of the most contaminated country with antipersonnel mines, resulting in more than 11,000 victims since 1990, according to the Colombian government’s Office of the High Commissioner for Peace. As of September 30, 2019, 356 Colombian municipalities were declared cleared of antipersonnel mines with the destruction or neutralization of 6,870 explosive devices. However, a ...
- ‘New Hope’ as 38 More Colombian Municipalities Cleared of Landmines
November 19, 2019
Thirty-eight more Colombian municipalities are considered free of landmines and unexploded ordinance, President Ivan Duque said Tuesday, as civilian and military efforts to remove improvised explosives continue despite ongoing conflict in some areas. Colombia was once among the countries where people suffered the most injuries from landmines, one result of more than five decades of armed ...
- Bomb damages Colombia’s Cano Limon crude pipeline
August 10, 2019
A bomb has damaged a section of Colombia’s Cano Limon pipeline, state-run oil company Ecopetrol said on Saturday, the twenty-sixth attack on the pipeline this year. The attack, which took in Las Bancas in eastern Arauquita municipality, did not contaminate any water sources, the company said in a statement. It did cause a small spill which ...
- Car bomber kills 10 in Colombia police academy attack
January 17, 2019
A car bomb exploded at a police academy in Colombia’s capital Bogota on Thursday, killing at least 10 people and wounding over 50 in an attack that prompted fears of a return to the country’s violent past. Authorities said the car broke through checkpoints into the grounds of the General Santander School and exploded, shattering windows ...
- Colombia’s Cano Limon Oil Pipeline Hit by Bomb Attacks: Ecopetrol
January 9, 2019
Colombian state-run oil company Ecopetrol said on Wednesday there were two bomb attacks overnight on the Cano Limon pipeline in western Antioquia province, four days after a similar attack halted pumping. The latest bomb attacks occurred in the rural areas of La Pesquera and Las Bancas. Last year, there were 89 attacks on the 485-mile (780-km) ...
- Colombia’s ELN rebels kill five soldiers in bomb attack
February 27, 2018
At least five Colombian soldiers were killed and more than 10 wounded early Tuesday in an attack by the Marxist ELN rebels near the border with Venezuela, the Army said. The attack came one day after the National Liberation Army (ELN) said it would hold a unilateral ceasefire during legislative elections next month. The government had ...
- Colombia bomb attack kills at least five police, wounds dozens
January 27, 2018
An early morning bomb attack outside a police station in Colombia’s coastal city of Barranquilla killed at least five police officers and wounded 42 on Saturday, authorities said. The attack targeted the officers as they gathered in the San Jose neighborhood to receive their orders for the day in what police denounced as an “act of ...
- The challenge of clearing Colombia of landmines
January 19, 2018
One year after Colombia signed a historic peace deal with FARC rebels, a key challenge is to clear the soil of anti-personnel mines and other explosives. After Afghanistan, Colombia is the world’s most densely landmined country, with the devices responsible for thousands of deaths in recent decades. The military and an army of NGOs are now ...
- Colombian Military Forces Find Hundreds of Antipersonnel Mines
November 22, 2017
A joint operation between Colombia’s National Army, Navy, and National Police uncovered 444 buried mines in the southern department of Putumayo. The mines, made with 84 kilograms of ANFO (ammonium nitrate and fuel oil) explosives, were wrapped in plastic bags to protect them from moisture. “The discovery, made in early October, is the largest to date ...
- New Zealand pledges $1 million to help clear landmines in Colombia
June 30, 2017
New Zealand is giving $1 million in aid to help clear landmines in Colombia, one of the most mine-scarred countries in the world after a half century of war, officials said on Friday. Most of the funds will go to a two-year program by the British-based Halo Trust, a demining group, said New Zealand’s foreign minister, ...
- Rebel bomb attack halts Colombia’s Cano Limon crude pipeline
June 20, 2017
A bomb attack over the weekend by the Marxist ELN rebels has halted the flow of crude along Colombia’s second largest oil pipeline, the Cano-Limon Covenas, sources from the military and state-run oil company Ecopetrol said on Tuesday. The explosion took place on Saturday in a rural area of Saravena municipality, in the province of Arauca. ...