Colombian President Gustavo Petro said Friday that an explosion in southwestern Colombia killed eight police officers.
“I strongly reject the attack that killed eight policemen,” Petro wrote on Twitter, adding: “I stand in full solidarity with their families.”
The attack took place in a rural area in the province of Huila. “It was an attack on a police patrol … it looks like it was explosives and they were killed with gunfire,” a local police spokesman told AFP.
The authorities did not point fingers at any party.
This is the most serious attack on public security forces since Pietro came to power early last month as Colombia’s first left-wing president and renewed dialogue with the National Liberation Army, widely regarded as the last organized guerrilla group operating in Colombia.
His conservative predecessor Ivan Duque suspended peace talks after a 22-person car bomb at a police academy in Bogotá killed 22 people in 2019.
Petro also proposed a “multilateral” ceasefire with FARC defectors who laid down their arms and signed a peace deal in 2016.
The President is pursuing a policy of “comprehensive peace” seeking to end a sixty-year-old conflict that also involves drug traffickers.
Source: AP