What Happened?
A car filled with explosives detonated at a Bogotá police academy in Colombia Thursday, killing 21 and injuring at least 68 people.
The vehicle entered the premises of the General Santander Police Academy where a cadet ceremony was taking place inside. When guards stopped the car at a checkpoint, it quickly accelerated and crashed into a wall, causing the explosion, BBC News reported.
The blast was large and broke windows of surrounding buildings, witnesses reported.
The driver, 57-year-old José Aldemar Rojas Rodríguez, died in the explosion. Authorities identified Rodríguez as a member of Columbia’s largest remaining rebel group, the National Liberation Army, according to the New York Times.
The Latest
The National Liberation Army, a Marxist group known as the ELN claimed responsibility for the bombing, saying the attack was a response to the government bombing its camps, CNN reported Monday.
“Therefore, the operation carried out against said establishment and troops is legal per the ‘right of war,'” said the ELN, which established a ceasefire with the Colombian government in September 2017.
Since then, there have been attacks from both sides, according to CNN.
Columbia President Iván Duque visited the academy after the attack.
“Terrorists are looking to intimidate us as a society and attack the state,” Duque said.
Duque declared three days of mourning and said Colombia would “demonstrate that it is a strong state, united and won’t break in the face of the dementia of these aggressions,” according to CBS.
In Context
ELN increased their number of attacks against the government since their rival group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, signed a peace treaty with the government in 2016.
ELN Members of the National Liberation Army bombed a police station in January of last year, killing five police officers and injuring more than 40 people in Barranquilla.
The group also kidnapped four soldiers, three police officers and two military contractors last year to pressure the government into negotiating peace. The hostages were released, but the government refused to negotiate, according to the New York Times.
