The devastating explosion on a highway in the southwestern Cauca department injured another 56 people and was the biggest single loss of life since Farc blew up a Bogota nightclub in 2003, killing 36 people.
Coming a month before presidential elections on May 31, the attack fueled fears that violence is on the rise once again, 10 years after Farc agreed to disarm after a half-century of conflict with the state.
The dissident Farc offshoot Central General Command (EMC) took responsibility for the attack, stating late on Tuesday that the incident had occurred during clashes with the army and had resulted from “errors” in the group’s military manoeuvres.
The EMC is led by Ivan Mordisco, Colombia’s most-wanted criminal suspect. It broke away from Farc when the latter laid down arms in a historic peace accord in 2016.
“With profound sorrow, we must assume political responsibility for this tactical error, which has no justification whatsoever,” the statement read. A military source told AFP that the guerrillas had set up a checkpoint on the road to ambush soldiers.
Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez said the reprisal had followed military pressure after peace negotiations between left-wing President Gustavo Petro and Mordisco.
The police on Tuesday captured Jose Vitonco, an alleged leader of a local rebel group with links to Mordisco and who police said was the “main person responsible” for the attack in Cauca.
Petro has called the incident a “terrorist” attack and asserted that it aimed to sabotage the elections.
On Wednesday, he accused the right-wing leader of neighbouring Ecuador, with whom he has repeatedly locked horns, of “stirring up violence in Colombia,” without providing proof of his claim.
Noboa, for his part, claimed that Ecuador had suffered a cross-border “incursion…by Colombian guerrillas driven by the Petro Government,” also without substantiating the allegation.
Petro is constitutionally barred from running for a second consecutive term. His political heir, senator Ivan Cepeda, is currently leading in the polls, trailed by rightwing candidates Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia. (AFP)
