Guerilla fighters carried out four bomb attacks that wounded six people in northeast Colombia overnight, officials said on Thursday, stoking concerns for a fragile peace process.
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The police and military blamed the ELN group, with which the government called off peace talks last month, for the attacks in a restive region near Colombia’s border with Venezuela.
A car bomb all but destroyed a toll booth outside the city of Villa del Rosario, while explosives also detonated at police stations in the same city and in neighbouring Cucuta, police commander General William Quintero told W Radio.
A source in the Norte de Santander departmental government, of which Cucuta is the capital, told Agence France-Presse six people were injured.
Analysts say the security situation in Colombia has deteriorated under President Gustavo Petro’s peace drive, which has seen an easing of the state’s military offensive against armed groups.
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Petro was elected in 2022 on promises of bringing “total peace” to a country battling to extricate itself from six decades of armed conflict between leftist guerillas, right-wing paramilitaries, drug cartels and the government.