Colombia’s largest rebel group FARC Sunday attacked the Panamerica highway in
Cauca and forbids all traffic on the highway connecting Colombia and
Ecuador and in the departments Meta and Caquetá.
Local authorities in Toribio, a small Cauca town where on the highway nearby a hundred kilo explosive exploded, say the bomb created a 60 foot crater.
“There was a very heavy explosion. It seemed like an earthquake because it the houses were shaking,” local government official Diego Daza told reporters.
The official added that authorities were imposing extra security measures to keep control over the economically important highway.
The FARC extended its traffic ban east of the Panamerican highway. The guerrillas prohibit any commercial transport in the departments of Caquetá and Meta, bordering the Bogotá capital district.
In Caquetá, where the FARC imposed the ban a week ago, one taxi driver was killed by guerrillas for ignoring the ban, teh department’s governor said. Other vehicles were set on fire.
Colombia’s federal government Sunday evening had not yet responded to the FARC’s attempt to take control of the highways in the south of the country.