The device was discovered on Wednesday 5 kilometers from a military air base. Pressure from armed groups is increasing as the May 31 presidential election approaches.
A drone loaded with explosives was discovered near Bogota international airport, which also houses military installations, a Colombian army source told AFP on Friday. The device was discovered on Wednesday 5 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.
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 Cauca prosecutor’s office”a department in the southwest of the country where the Colombian army and guerrillas are waging violent fighting, an army official told AFP.
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Departure of the president in August
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. The EMC acknowledged its responsibility in the bomb attack which on April 25 killed 21 civilians but pleaded a “error”saying she wanted to attack the army that is chasing 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.
