A soldier died and two have been wounded Wednesday when a bomb that guerrilla fighters had hooked up to a donkey exploded in northwest Colombia, a neighborhood authorities official stated.
The assault in Valdivia in Colombia’s Antioquia division was attributed to the Nationwide Liberation Military, identified by its Spanish language acronym ELN, with which the federal government has suspended peace talks because the conflict-torn South American nation faces its worst violence in a decade.
The talks have been frozen in January, when the ELN was blamed for over 100 deaths in raids close to the border with Venezuela. The group has intensified its assaults on Colombia’s safety forces since then.
Antioquia governor Andres Julian Rendon introduced the assault in a post on X, saying one officer was killed and two injured.
The assault was carried out utilizing an “equine loaded with explosives” and despatched towards a platoon of troopers, he stated.
“This authorities insists on speaking about complete peace and now with the story of city peace,” Rendon stated on X. “Emboldened bandits navigating in impunity.”
In a subsequent post, Rendon recognized the fallen soldier as Lieutenant Jhonatan Arbey Monsalve Moreno.
“He was serving the nation with heroism when [ELN] criminals attacked his unit,” Rendon stated.
With the said aim of reaching “complete peace” after many years of battle, leftist President Gustavo Petro took workplace in 2022 and reopened peace talks with an array of armed teams.
Colombia has loved virtually a decade of relative peace because the signing of a deal in 2016 led to the disarmament of its largest insurgent military, the FARC.
But pockets of the nation are nonetheless managed by assorted left-wing guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries and drug cartels vying for management of narcotics manufacturing, unlawful mining and trafficking routes. The U.S. has designated FARC and ELN as overseas terrorist organizations.
Throughout Petro’s time period, observers say armed teams financed by the cocaine commerce have solely grown stronger.
In January, dozens of people were killed in Colombia’s northeast area following failed makes an attempt to carry peace talks with the ELN. Later that month, Colombia’s authorities introduced a $700,000 reward for info resulting in the arrest and conviction of 4 leaders of the insurgent group.
The Related Press contributed to this report.
