Dozens of police officers have been killed in the country so far this year, as its new president struggles to quell a wave of violence he campaigned on ending.
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — An explosion on Friday afternoon killed seven police officers who were heading to a social welfare event in Colombia’s southern department of Huila, according to the authorities. An eighth officer was hospitalized with injuries.
Colombia has faced rising violence in the past five years, including attacks directed at the police, as the promises of a landmark peace deal with the country’s largest rebel group have largely faltered. More than 40 police officers have been killed in Colombia this year.
The national police said that the officers killed Friday had been on the way to San Luis, a small town in Neiva, a municipality of 350,000 people, when an explosive went off in the town of Corozal. The youngest of the officers was 18, the police said. The defense ministry initially reported that eight had been killed. Huila’s police department on Saturday confirmed that it was seven, and said that the injured officer had hidden in the forest until the police found him.
President Gustavo Petro, who was inaugurated last month, campaigned on a pledge to end the cycles of violence that have plagued the country, an ambitious promise of “total peace.” In addition to negotiating with the country’s armed groups, he said that his plans for tax and agrarian reform would tackle the poverty and inequality that have fueled the conflict.
On Friday night, he condemned the attack on Twitter. “Solidarity with their families,” he wrote of the officers killed. “These facts express a clear sabotage of total peace.”
Photos of the scene show a bullet-riddled truck with punctured tires, with the bodies of the men lying on the ground and in the vehicle.
Mr. Petro and the commander of the military forces, Gen. Helder Giraldo, arrived in Neiva on Friday night for a meeting of security forces, the Ministry of Defense said.
In a joint news release, the Defense Ministry and the office of the high commissioner for peace said “total peace” meant not remaining silent in the face of crimes. “This act of terror is a sabotage to the purposes of overcoming this violence that serves the interests of a few, who live and have lived off of the war,” the statement said.
Dissident groups of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, are known to have a presence in Huila. The town of San Luis, which has a history of conflict, in recent years has tried to remake its image by painting its streets with eye-catching colors, aiming to become “the largest mural town in Colombia.