Colombian Rebels Reportedly Kill 17 in Attack on Police
Hundreds of guerrillas from Colombia’s largest rebel army launched a three-day attack on a police station, killing at least 17 people, including nine police officers and four children, police said Sunday.
Eight other police officers were wounded and seven more taken prisoner in the weekend attack by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC.
The attack, which ended Sunday, was one of the most deadly guerrilla assaults on civilians in memory.
“I haven’t words for what I’m seeing, the horror,” state police commander Ruben Carillo said by telephone from Narino, a town of 4,000 residents about 100 miles northwest of Bogota.
Police and soldiers arrived at noon Sunday in the sugar- and coffee-producing town, where 300 rebels attacked a police station defended by 35 officers.
The rebels hold more than 450 police and soldiers from earlier attacks on similar outposts, hoping to use them to boost their position in talks with President Andres Pastrana’s government to end the country’s 35-year civil conflict.
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