Bomb blast on Colombia highway leaves 21 dead amid pre-election violence

Cocaine-trafficking rebels blamed for worst attack on civilians in decades, which also left 56 people injured The death toll in a Colombian highway bombing blamed on cocaine-trafficking rebels has risen to 21, the government said on Monday, in the country’s worst attack on civilians in decades and just ahead of elections. The attack on Saturday left 56 injured and buses and vans mangled on the Pan-American Highway, in the restive south-western Cauca department. The governor, Octavio Guzmán, described the bombing as the area’s “most brutal and ruthless attack against the civilian population in decades”, adding that it left a crater 200 cubic metres in size. Several cars were flipped over by the force of the explosion. Of the injured, three people remained in intensive care. Five children were also injured but were “out of danger”. The military chief, Hugo López, told a news conference on Saturday that the bomb had exploded after assailants stopped traffic by blocking the road with a bus and another vehicle. “It is a terrorist attack against the civilian population,” López said. The attack occurred just over a month before national elections, in which voters will pick a successor to