Bogotá (AFP) – A truck bomb attack killed four people in western Colombia, including a two-month-old baby, the Defense Ministry announced Monday, which attributed the attack to dissidents from the former Farc guerrillas.

Published on: 03/11/2026 - 02:21

Since coming to power in August, hard-right President Abelardo de la Espriella has launched an offensive against guerrilla camps, which has already left dozens dead, including at least eight minors.

For their part, illegal armed groups carry out explosive attacks and assassinations. Last week, at least four attacks were committed, including one in which a police officer was killed.

“These crimes will not go unpunished!”, wrote the Head of State on the social network X, describing these attacks as “cowardly narco-terrorist attacks”.

The latest occurred near a military base on Sunday evening in the municipality of Planadas, south of the department of Tolima. A truck loaded with explosives exploded, causing damage to the hospital and several homes.

The Colombian Defense Ministry attributed the explosions to "members of the Gerónimo Galeano structure", a dissident group of the FARC, the guerrilla group that signed a peace agreement with the government in 2016.

“It is with deep pain that I inform of the results, still provisional, of an attack in Planadas which left four dead, including a baby of only two months. Unacceptable!”, declared the governor of Tolima, Adriana Magali Matiz, on X.

Video shows a woman screaming desperately as a man pulls a small body wrapped in a blanket from the rubble. In other images, bloodied people lie among rubble, which litters the streets.

“Vile and criminal act”

The explosion left 17 injured, according to the Ministry of Defense, which deployed a field hospital to care for the victims.

This attack is “a vile and criminal act that we condemn with the greatest firmness,” Ms. Matiz wrote on X.

“Attacking the civilian population, our soldiers and the families of Tolima is crossing a line that we do not tolerate,” she added.

President De la Espriella warned that he would step up the fight against clandestine armed groups.

“We will continue bombings against legitimate military objectives, we will intensify special operations and we will move forward in relaunching fumigations (of illegal crops, editor’s note) in accordance with the law,” he said.

According to the mayor of Planadas, in addition to the truck bomb, "residents saw drones flying over the urban center" of the locality, devices that armed groups are using more and more.

Colombia is currently experiencing a new wave of violence, fueled by the confrontation between guerrillas and cartels for control of drug trafficking routes in this country, the world's leading producer of cocaine.

On September 1, a car bomb exploded, killing one person and injuring 11 people. Three weeks later, three soldiers were killed and four others injured after stepping on explosive devices planted by a dissident group of the dissolved guerrilla of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc, Marxists).

© 2026 AFP

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