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 the country’s nearly 60-year conflict.
Petro, a former member of the M-19 guerrillas, has vowed to seek “total peace” by resuming talks with leftist ELN rebels, implementing the 2016 peace deal with former FARC guerrillas that rejecting it and negotiating the extradition of criminal gangs in return. for reducing the sentence.
“I strongly oppose the explosive attack in San Luis, Huila, which killed seven police officers. Solidarity with their families”, writes Petro on Twitter.
“These acts are a clear act of sabotage against any 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 perpetrators of the attack, but security sources said so-called dissidents from the now demobilized Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels are operating in the area.
According to government sources, the dissidents oppose the peace deal negotiated by their former leadership and number around 2,400 fighters in their ranks.
Several well-known dissident commanders have been killed recently, many of them 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.
