Highway Bombing Kills 19 in Colombia’s Cauca Department
A devastating highway bomb attack on the Pan-American Highway in southwestern Colombia’s Cauca department killed 19 people and injured at least 38 on April 26, marking the latest escalation in violence ahead of the country’s May 31 presidential election.
According to AFP, the blast occurred on Saturday, leaving buses and vans mangled and flipping several cars. The force of the explosion carved a large crater into the roadway.
While the department’s governor initially reported a death toll of 14 on Saturday evening, Colombia’s National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences confirmed on Sunday morning that it had begun examining 19 bodies from the scene.
Military chief Hugo Lopez told a press conference on Saturday that assailants had first blocked traffic using a bus and another vehicle before detonating the bomb. Defence Minister Pedro Sanchez said authorities had boosted military and police presence in the affected areas.
President Gustavo Petro blamed the bombing on Ivan Mordisco, Colombia’s most-wanted criminal, whom he has compared to the late cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar. Lopez noted that 26 attacks had been recorded across the Cauca and Valle del Cauca departments in the past two days alone, following a Friday bomb attack on a military base in Cali — Colombia’s third-largest city — that injured two people.
Security has emerged as a central issue in the upcoming presidential election. Political violence was thrust into the national spotlight last June when young conservative presidential frontrunner Miguel Uribe Turbay was shot in broad daylight while campaigning in Bogota and later died from his wounds.
The bombing, coming just over a month before voters choose Petro’s successor, has intensified concerns about the country’s deteriorating security situation. Analysts note that southwestern Colombia has long been affected by armed groups and drug trafficking organizations, with violence typically surging in the lead-up to elections.