At least five people were injured in the explosion of a car bomb at a police station, this Friday (22), in southwestern Colombia, the second attack in three days attributed to FARC dissidents negotiating peace with the government .
The explosion occurred in the municipality of Jamundí, in the department of Valle del Cauca, where rebels are fighting against public forces in reprisal for their military offensive to target drug trafficking, according to President Gustavo Petro.
“Condemnable attack in Jamundí, Valle. We continue to affect illegal economies and the reaction is acts of violence. We will not give in. The Public Force must take over the territory militarily and as a government we will fully reach these populations”, said the president on the social network (formerly Twitter).
Videos posted on social media show heavy smoke and people running, while alarms sound minutes after the explosion.
According to the police, the five injured are civilians, and one of them is “in serious condition”. “There was also damage to five homes and the facade of the police substation,” the institution added in a message to the press.
Defense Minister Iván Velásquez highlighted that those responsible for the attack were dissidents from the Central General Staff (EMC), the most powerful arm of the rebels who rejected the peace agreement in 2016 and who are moving towards a new negotiation table with the government to be installed on October 8th. A ceasefire will also begin on that date.
“We had to go meter by meter, we took over trenches. In some places, there were hand-to-hand combats, where the soldiers finished the operation with hand grenades. It is clear that the EMC tries to react, distract, generate pressure in other places so that we stop this operation, which we will not stop”, declared the minister to Rádio Caracol.
According to him, in the southwest region, “75% of EMC’s financing is concentrated”, where it maintains its drug cultivation, in the country that produces the most cocaine in the world.
© Agence France-Presse
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