The death toll rose to 14 as 38 people were injured in a bomb attack in southwestern Colombia, authorities said on Saturday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
An explosive, planted in a culvert on the Pan-American highway in Cajibio in the Cauca region, was detonated as vehicles were passing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Authorities said the blast occurred during heavy traffic, increasing the scale of casualties and damage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Security forces were deployed to the area following the blast, which witnesses said occurred during heavy traffic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A traditional rural bus known as a \u201cchiva\u201d was destroyed in the explosion, which also damaged vehicles and left a large crater on the road.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The force of the explosion also damaged several nearby vehicles, and reports indicated that an explosive device may have been thrown onto a bus before detonating, further intensifying the impact<\/p>\n\n\n\n
President Gustavo Petro blamed Ivan Mordisco, leader of the EMC faction of the FARC rebel group, for the attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThose who killed 7 civilians and injured 20 civilians in Cajibio are terrorists, fascists and drug traffickers,\u201d Petro wrote on social media, directing intensified military operations and global tracking of the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a separate statement, Petro reiterated his call for intensified operations and demanded the highest level of international tracking against what he described as a \u201cnarco-terrorist group.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two people were injured in a bus bombing in a separate incident near a military base in the city of Cali.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cauca Governor Octavio Guzman described the attack as a tragedy that plunged the local population into deep mourning, confirming the updated toll and the presence of child victims among the dead. – AA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The death toll rose to 14 as 38 people were injured in a bomb attack in southwestern Colombia, authorities said on Saturday. An explosive, planted in a culvert on the Pan-American highway in Cajibio in the Cauca region, was detonated as vehicles were passing. Authorities said the blast occurred during heavy traffic, increasing the scale […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[205,168],"tags":[413,412,414,415],"class_list":{"0":"post-2923","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-secondary-story","8":"category-world","9":"tag-bomb","10":"tag-colombia","11":"tag-gustavo-petro","12":"tag-ivan-mordisco"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1nationmedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1nationmedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1nationmedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1nationmedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1nationmedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2923"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/1nationmedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2923\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2925,"href":"https:\/\/1nationmedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2923\/revisions\/2925"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1nationmedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1nationmedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1nationmedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1nationmedia.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}