A bomb in Colombia’s troubled southwest Cauca department has left one dead and four injured, reported local media on Friday.
According to W Radio, locals gave varying accounts of the event. Some reported that the inhabitants of a house were handling the explosives that detonated, while others maintained the bomb went off outside of the house.
Violence has plagued the region which has been a hub of FARC guerrilla activity in recent months. The fighting in the north of Cauca is due to the FARC’s attempt to maintain control of important drug trafficking routes through the region and to recover territory in neighboring deparments that they lost in 2010 and 2011 when the army launched a major offensive that eventually led to the killing of the FARC’s supreme leader, “Alfonso Cano.”
Cauca’s indigenous Nasa people are tired of their ancestral lands being taken over by fighting and they began to take action to regain their territory when they occupied a military base six weeks ago. The Nasa tribe has protested in order to get all military and FARC rebels out of their ancestral home.
The indigenous Nasa met with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos in July when he announced a new security strategy aimed at tackling FARC activity in the region, the results of the strategy are to be evaluated in October.