Two policemen were killed in a bomb attack early Tuesday morning in Colombia’s capital city of Bogota.
Local media reported that the two police officers were attending to a call regarding a suspicious looking package in a garbage bin in the Bogota neighborhood of Casablanca.
The large explosion set off alarm bells in the sector and caused widespread panic, leading to the evacuation of the area.
Authorities cordoned off the scene of the attack, which took place on the corner of Avenida Villavicencio and Carrera 80 in the southwest of the city.
The director of the Bogota Police, Francisco Patiño, and Mayor Clara Lopez came to the scene following the event.
According to a report by Caracol Radio, Bogota’s mayor said that although they did not know who carried out the attack, it was obvious the person intended to “cause a lot of damage to police and disrupt the elections.”
Colombia holds local elections on October 30 and authorities are on the highest alert for attempts to disrupt the elections by illegal armed groups like the FARC or ELN. According to the government, some 350,000 members of the security forces are deployed to make sure the elections go well.