Colombia’s bishops expressed their outrage after at least 18 people died and more than 40 were injured in two attacks in Colombia attributed to different dissident factions of the former FARC guerrilla group. Source: NCR Online.
Bishops decried as “brutal” the “wave of violence that rocked the country,” with the Archdiocese of Cali, Colombia’s most populous city where the attacks happened, “urgently” calling for justice and peace.
Six people died when a cargo vehicle with explosives detonated near a Colombian Aerospace Force base, causing 71 further injuries, according to the mayor’s office, as reported by Reuters.
Hours earlier, the agency reported, a National Police Black Hawk UH-60 helicopter participating in a coca leaf crop eradication operation was shot down in the municipality of Amalfi, in the department of Antioquia, leaving 12 officers dead.
The Colombian bishops’ conference, including the conference president, Cartagena Archbishop Francisco Javier Múnera Correa, condemned the terrorist attacks and extended its “sentiments of solidarity” to the families of the victims “at this time when violence continues to knock on the doors of Colombian homes, sowing pain and despair.”
The bishops made a direct appeal to all parties involved in the conflict to abandon “the path of death and walk the path of respect for life, which dignifies and makes true human development possible”.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro attributed the attacks to dissident groups of the former FARC guerrilla movement, which refused to accept the 2016 peace accord aimed at ending the decades-long conflict that has claimed over 450,000 lives.
The country’s bishops called on state authorities to intensify security and comprehensive care for the civilian population, placing the protection of citizens as an unavoidable priority.
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Colombia’s bishops condemn terrorist attacks that ‘rocked the country’ (NCR Online)
