Masked gunmen killed two people and wounded four others when they opened fire in Medellin’s northwestern Comuna 6 early Monday morning, reported newspaper El Colombiano.
Witnesses reported that the incident occured at 2AM Monday when a group of masked attackers opened fire from a taxi using long-range weapons on a group of bystanders.
Carlos Arcila, coordinator of a human rights group in Comuna 6, told the newspaper that “the people here are terrorized and we call on the authorities to pay more attention to the situation here.” According to statistics published by Medicina Legal, the national coroner’s office, 13 homicides have taken place in Comuna 6 since January 2011.
Describing this morning’s attack, Medellin police commissioner Yesid Vazquez said that the “taxi drove past at high speed, opening fire on the group, leaving two dead and four injured.”
The official went on to say that the incident related to a “confrontation between two of four gangs operating in the sector, and it is fortunate that more people were not harmed.”
In response to the rising violence in the comuna, Vazquez said that the attack does not represent the latest in a series of local vendettas, rather one gang simply “taking advantage of the fact that members of another were targets out in open.” The police commander did however promise that his officers would be “reinforcing the area and working with the local community to prevent future attacks.”
On January 15, a similar violent incident in the comuna left four dead and eight injured. In September 2010, masked men opened fire from a taxi killing five and injuring eight, and in November of the same year, another group of gunmen opened fire on a group of youths, this time from a motorbike.