Colombia car bomb kills seven

breakingnews.iol.ie 05/03/2003 - 17:53:49

A car bomb blast in a Colombian town’s shopping centre killed at least 20 people and injured 20 others today, police said. General Luis Alfredo Rodriguez blamed rebels from the National Liberation Army, or ELN, for the attack in Cucuta, 250 miles north-east of Bogota. The car was in an underground car park. Television images showed shocked survivors wandering around the shopping stalls, Ash Wednesday marks still on their foreheads. Firemen, rescue crews and police officers worked their way through the smoke as frightened passers-by looked on. The ELN and the nation’s largest rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, are battling outlawed paramilitary groups for control of Cucuta. The city, near the border with Venezuela, has one of the highest murder rates in Colombia.