At least five people died in a suspected truck bomb that exploded mid-afternoon Thursday near a military base in Cali, Columbia’s third most populated city.
Dozens of people were injured in the explosion, which struck on a road adjacent to a military aviation school, according to the mayor’s office in Cali, in the South American country’s southwest.
Hours earlier, a police helicopter was shot down in the department of Antioquia in northern Colombia, killing 12 officers and injuring several others.
The national police Black Hawk helicopter was transporting personnel to the rural Amalfi area to eradicate a coca leaf crops, the raw material used to make cocaine.
Antioquia governor Andres Julian said in a post on X that a drone attacked the helicopter as it flew over coca leaf crops.
In a later post, he asked why authorities had failed to rescue the injured and recover the bodies of the dead nine hours after the helicopter downing.
Spanish news agency EFE also reported that the dead and wounded were yet to be evacuated because of difficulties in accessing the mountainous jungle area where the attack occurred.
FARC splinter groups blamed for both attacks
Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro and Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez blamed the two attacks on dissident factions of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a now-defunct leftist guerrilla group.
In a post on X, Petro called the helicopter attack an “an act of war” committed by the 36th Front of the Estado Mayor Central (EMC), alluding to one of the main FARC splinter groups operating in northeastern Antioquia.
Over the years, the EMC has become heavily involved in criminal activities, particularly narcotics trafficking.
Sanchez, who had earlier said that the attack on the police helicopter was carried out by the Clan del Golfo cartel, said in an update on X that E36 were responsible, according to “recent information” from the police.
As for the attack next to the military base in Cali, Sanchez said the Mordisco narco-cartel, another FARC splinter group, was responsible.
Sanchez added that the “cowardly attack against civilians” in Cali was ” a desperate reaction to the loss of control over drug trafficking” in the area.
Colombia faces surge in armed violence
Colombia is in the midst of a dramatic surge in violence from armed conflict less than 10 years after the 2016 peace deal between the government and FARC.
The lucrative drug trade is one of the reasons driving this rising violence.
Coca leaf cultivation is on the rise in Colombia, one of the world’s leading cocaine producers.
The area under cultivation reached a record 253,000 hectares in 2023, according to the latest report available from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
Edited by: Karl Sexton
