A drone loaded with explosives was found five kilometers from Bogota airport in Colombia, which also hosts a military air base, on Wednesday. This discovery comes in a very tense climate in the run-up to the presidential election, scheduled for May 31.
A drone loaded with explosives was discovered on Wednesday May 6 near Bogotá international airport, which also houses military installations, a Colombian army official said this Friday.
The device was discovered five kilometers from the Catam military air base, adjacent to El Dorado international airport, in a context of pressure from armed groups in Colombia in the run-up to the presidential election on May 31.
Violent fighting in the southwest of the country
Drones are commonly used by guerrillas, mainly those of the National Liberation Army (ELN) and dissidents of the former Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) to attack military bases or police stations.
“The clues (of the presence of the drone) came from the prosecutor’s office in Cauca”, a department in the south-west of the country where the Colombian army and guerrillas are waging violent fighting, an army official told AFP.
This region has vast areas of illicit coca cultivation – the main ingredient of cocaine of which Colombia is the world’s leading producer – and is the bastion of EMC dissidence, under the orders of Ivan Modrisco, the country’s most wanted criminal who turned his back on the historic 2016 peace agreement with the Farc.
A bomb attack at the end of April
The EMC admitted its responsibility in the bomb attack which on April 25 killed 21 civilians but pleaded an “error”, saying that it wanted to attack the army which hunted its fighters.
Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first left-wing president who will leave power on August 7, had begun a process of “total peace” with the various armed groups operating in Colombia but did not reach an agreement with any of them.
Ivan Cepeda, favorite in the polls and from the same party as Gustavo Petro, assured that in the event of victory he will seek to put an end through dialogue to 60 years of internal conflict, against a backdrop of drug trafficking thanks to which guerrillas and cartels are financed.
The right-wing candidates in the fight for a place in the second round, Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia, reject the principle of dialogue with armed groups and promise to attack them head-on.
