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President Gustavo Petro reported that eight police officers were killed in an explosives-related attack in southwest Colombia on Friday.
Tweeted Petro “I deeply condemn the bombing that resulted in the deaths of eight police officers. supporting their families in this.”
The attack happened in a remote section of the Huila department.
“It was an attack on a police patrol; it appears to have involved explosives, and they were killed with weapons,” a regional police spokesperson told AFP.
Authorities have not assigned blame to any specific parties.
Since former guerrilla leader Petro became Colombia’s first Marxist president at the beginning of last month, this attack on public security personnel is the most serious to have occurred.
Petro has resumed communication with the National Liberation Army (ELN), commonly regarded as the final rebel organisation still active in Colombia.
After a vehicle bomb incident in 2019 that killed 22 people outside of a police school in Bogota, his conservative predecessor, Ivan Duque, halted peace negotiations.
Petro has supported a “multilateral” ceasefire along with rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), who laid down their guns and accepted a peace pact in 2016.
The president has called for “total peace” to put an end to the conflict, which has lasted for 60 years and also involves drug traffickers.
Some traffickers and rebel organisations linked to the powerful Gulf Clan have expressed interest in joining the ceasefire.
“These acts clearly harm the overall peace,” Petro declared.
