Colombia suspends peace talks with ELN rebels over bombings
Five officers were killed and more than 40 injured when a homemade bomb exploded outside a police station in Barranquilla during a shift change early Saturday. A few hours later two more were killed and several injured by two separate bomb attacks on police targets near the coastal city
Colombia’s President Juan Manuel Santos speaks during a meeting in Cundinamarca, Colombia, January 29, 2018 (Reuters)
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has suspended peace talks with the country’s last remaining rebel group after a series of bombings over the weekend killed seven police officers. The next round of the year-old talks between the government and National Liberation Army had been expected to begin in the coming days in Quito, Ecuador.
“My patience and the patience of the Colombian people have limits,” Santos, winner of the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end Colombia’s half-century conflict, said at an event near Bogota yesterday. Five officers were killed and more than 40 injured when a homemade bomb exploded outside a police station in Barranquilla during a shift change early Saturday. A few hours later two more were killed and several injured by two separate bomb attacks on police targets near the coastal city.
An urban cell belonging to the ELN, as the group is known in Spanish, claimed responsibility for the first and deadliest of the three attacks, which the government initially attributed to a criminal gang operating in Barranquilla. Defence Minister Luis Carlos Villegas said a man suspected of planting the bomb and who had previously been arrested for having ties to the ELN was arrested shortly after the first attack.
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