BOGOTÁ – At least eight Colombian police officers were killed this Friday in an ambush perpetrated in a rural area of the department of Huila, in the southwest of the country, confirmed President Gustavo Petro.
El The attack, whose perpetrators have not been identified, took place on the outskirts of San Luis, a village that is part of the rural area of Neiva, the capital of Huila, according to the authorities.
According to First information, the victims are two subintendents, two patrolmen and four auxiliaries.
“I strongly reject the attack with explosives that killed 8 police officers in San Luis, Huila. Solidarity with their families. These facts express a clear sabotage of total peace. I have asked the authorities to travel to the territory to take over the investigation,” Petro said on his Twitter account.
Apparently, the policemen were going back to the police station at the who were assigned after a day of work in the township of San Luis when a minefield was activated in the path of the van in which they were traveling.
After the explosion, the uniformed men were attacked with bursts rifle, according to information compiled by local media.
“We are waiting for them to confirm (the data) because we know about the displacement of the eight companions, but we need to confirm exactly what the pitiful figure is. The site is not so easy to access, so there is an aircraft flying over there,” police sources confirmed to Efe.
The director of the Police, Major General Henry Sanabria Cely, said on Twitter that he will travel to the He flees “immediately with all the institutional capacities to verify and accompany our police.”
For his part, the president of the Colombian Senate, Roy Barreras, “painfully” rejected the “cowardly” murder of the police in a message on social networks.
“They kill them in ambush. Damn drug trafficking kills humble public servants. Mourning in their families and in the Colombian family. Those who do not stop killing only deserve the strongest response from the State,” Barreras added. murder” and demanded that “the authorities must find those responsible”.
This is the first attack against the public force since Petro came to power, when the offensives against the public force were paralyzed through the so-called “pistol plan” promoted mainly by the criminal gang of the Clan del Gulf.
A total of 550 police officers were killed as a result of these attacks by the largest criminal gang in the country which, after extradition to the US. The US of its leader, Dairo Antonio Úsuga, alias “Otoniel”, increased the attacks against the security forces, especially on the Atlantic coast and the northwest of the country.