BOGOTÁ: An apparent bomb attack in Colombia’s restive southwest wounded 17 people Monday including three children and two police officers, authorities said, amid growing concern for a fragile peace process.
A device, probably a bomb attached to a motorcycle, exploded outside a police station in the town of Morales, Octavio Guzman, governor of the Cauca department, reported on X.
A seven-year-old girl was hospitalized with serious injuries, he said, and two police officers required treatment.
“They took me to the hospital because I couldn’t hear and see well,“ Deily Otero, one of the victims injured in the attack, told AFP.
She explained she was having lunch at a nearby restaurant when the explosion went off.
“I looked at the police officers, I saw them on the ground and I saw the children... and the motorcycle on fire,“ Otero said.
Colombia is battling to extricate itself from six decades of armed conflict between leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, drug cartels and government forces.
The South American country has seen an uptick in violence as peace talks with remaining groups have broken down several times since a deal inked in 2016 led to the disarmament of the FARC -- then the biggest guerrilla army in the world.
Morales Mayor Oscar Yamit Guacheta posted a video on social media of dozens of people, including schoolchildren, fleeing after the powerful explosion.
In a press conference later Monday, Cauca police chief Giovanni Torres attributed the attack to rebel fighters of the Central General Staff (EMC) -- a splinter group of the FARC that rejected the peace agreement.
The UN Human Rights Office on Monday warned there had been “an expansion and consolidation” of armed groups in different parts of Colombia.
There are hotspots of fighting in the country’s northeast, northwest and southwest.
Last week, four bomb attacks in two cities near Colombia’s border with Venezuela injured six people, prompting officials to declare an overnight curfew. That attack was blamed on the ELN guerrilla group.
