2 police officers killed, 2 injured in bomb attack in Colombia

By Laura Gamba

BOGOTA, Colombia (AA) - Two police officers were killed and two others were injured in a bomb attack against a patrol vehicle that was traveling on the road connecting the towns of Puerto Lleras with Fuentedeoro in the center of Colombia.

The injured officers, who were also in the vehicle, were aided by the community and taken to a nearby hospital.

The Governor of Meta, Juan Guillermo Zuluaga, accused dissident members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a group that refused to sign a peace deal with the government in 2016.

"A new criminal attack against our police officers. Sadly, we have two police officers killed and two injured. In Puerto Lleras, FARC dissidents activated an explosive device as a patrol passed by. The same ones who talk about peace and cease-fire do not stop killing and intimidating," Zuluaga wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Negotiations have not been easy with the FARC rebel group. The Colombian government and the leftist rebel group have had a series of disagreements.

In May, President Gustavo Petro suspended a cease-fire agreement with the FARC dissidents after the murder of four young indigenous people in the department of Putumayo who had been forcibly recruited by the guerrilla group. The teenagers managed to escape but were tracked down and shot in the head.

"We have to launch a very hard offensive to capture all these criminals. We cannot continue to have prerogatives with those who threaten people's lives, those who kill, those who kidnap. Painfully, the list of police officers who are slaughtered continues to grow longer," said Zuluaga.