BOGOTÁ : A powerful highway bomb attack in southwestern Colombia has killed at least 19 people and injured 38 others, marking a major escalation of violence just weeks before the country’s presidential election.
The blast occurred Saturday on the Pan-American Highway in the restive Cauca department, leaving buses and vans mangled. Several cars were flipped over by the force of the explosion, and a large crater was blown out of the roadway.
While the department’s governor initially reported a death toll of 14 with more than 38 injured on Saturday evening, the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences said Sunday morning that it had begun examining 19 bodies.
Military chief General Hugo Lopez told a news conference on Saturday that the bomb detonated after assailants stopped traffic by blocking the road with a bus and another vehicle.
The attack comes just over one month ahead of national elections, in which voters will choose a successor to President Gustavo Petro. Petro blamed the bombing on Iván Mordisco, the country’s most-wanted criminal, whom the president has compared to late cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar.
The violence followed a bomb attack on Friday at a military base in Cali, Colombia’s third-largest city, which injured two people and triggered a string of attacks in the Valle del Cauca and Cauca departments. According to General Lopez, 26 attacks have been recorded in the two departments over the past two days.
Defence Minister Pedro Sánchez said authorities have boosted military and police presence in the affected areas.
