Six other people were injured. A military commander blamed a separatist rebel group for the attack. The government signed a peace accord with the Left Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) five years ago, but some FARC members, who disagreed with the deal, broke and continued. to be active. Army officials said gunmen opened fire on “a public place” in a rural area outside the city of Tumaco. Local media described the place as a nightclub.
Two people were killed at the scene and three more died later in hospital. Local media reported that one of the victims was a 15-year-old girl.
Colombian Army Major General Álvaro Vicente Pérez said the fault lay with a group of former Farc dissident rebels who called themselves Colonna Uriel Rendón.
In July, dissident Farc rebels claimed responsibility for the attack on a helicopter carrying President Iván Duque and a car bomb outside a military base in the northern city of Cúcuta, where 36 people were injured. heute for the study of development and peace, Indepaz, takes into account what it calls “massacres”, attacks which claim multiple victims.
He says there were 72 of these “massacres” across the country between January 1 and September 21 of this year, with a total of 258 people killed. The province of Nariño, where the last attack took place, is one of the hardest hit by an increase in deadly attacks. The area is one of the main coca producing regions in Colombia and is contested by many armed groups wanting to control the trade Many Farc rebels who did so did not sign the 2016 peace agreement and refused to lay down their arms, they engaged in drug trafficking and other criminal activities.
Major General Pérez said the rivalry between Uriel Rendón’s column and other armed gangs appears to have sparked this latest deadly shootout. The governor of the province of Nariño said that dealing with the attacks was “beyond the capabilities” of the regional authorities and called for help from the police and the army.
