On Friday, seven police officers were killed in an explosives attack in western Colombia.
According to President Gustavo Petro, it was the deadliest attack on security forces since he took office, promising to end nearly 60 years of conflict in the country.
Petro, a former member of the M-19 guerrillas, has promised to seek “total peace” by resuming talks with leftist ELN rebels, applying the 2016 peace deal to former FARC guerrillas who reject it, and negotiating the extradition of criminal gangs in exchange for reduced sentences.
“I strongly reject the explosive attack in San Luis, Huila, which killed seven police officers. Solidarity with their families,” Petro said on Twitter.
“These acts are a clear act of sabotage against all peace. I have asked the authorities to go to the area to investigate.”
Police sources said the officers were killed when an explosive device hit the vehicle they were traveling in.
Petro did not name the attack’s perpetrators, but security sources said so-called dissidents from the now-demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels operate in the area.
According to government sources, the dissidents reject the peace agreement negotiated by their former leadership and number some 2,400 fighters in their ranks.
Several known dissident commanders have been killed recently, many in fighting across the border in Venezuela.
The conflict between the government, leftist guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, and drug trafficking gangs in Colombia has claimed the lives of at least 450,000 people between 1985 and 2018 alone.
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