At least six people were killed and some 70 were injured in a devastating terrorist attack in a town in the southwest of Colombia.
The explosion decimated the downtown area of the coastal town of Tumaco, killing at least three civilian women and two policemen.
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Of the 70 injured, 36 were reported to be policemen. The remaining victims are civilian adults and children.
Police said FARC guerrillas are suspected to have left an explosive-laden motorcycle outside of the local police station.
“It was as if the station was demolished with a hammer, everything was destroyed, there were mutilated bodies and injured people everywhere,” a local told radio station Caracol.
The National Police’s Citizen Security director, General Rodolfo Palomino said the attack was “an expression of cowardice. The FARC left an explosive device — like a motorcycle or trike motorcycle — diagonal to our police station in Tumaco, in an area due to a heavy civilian flow because of the time [of the explosion] and the geographic location.”
The town’s mayor told local media there have been minor shootings and incidents with FARC and other militant groups but nothing on the scale of Wednesday’s attack.
The police offered a $55,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrators of the attack. Local authorities immediately called a security council and called on the national government for emergency assistance.
Tumaco, a port town of 170,000 inhabitants where several of Colombia’s most prominent illegal armed groups are active, is crucial for the trafficking of Colombian drugs to Ecuador and Central America.