Violence in the southwestern Colombian town of Toribio, where the FARC detonated a bomb that nearly destroyed the town, is continuing as a political candidate and a health official were killed this weekend.
According to several media reports, Liberal Party council candidate Carlos Banguerro was killed in Toribio on Sunday as a group of armed men dragged him and a man who was accompanying him out of their car and shot them. The killers made no effort to take anything of value from the two men, raising suspicions that the act was a political assassination.
Balanta Gaspar, a government health official was also killed in Toribio in a FARC-attributed attack on Saturday. Gaspar was driving his vehicle when he ran into a rebel roadblock. Guerrillas reportedly attacked his vehicle with explosives and gunfire.
The group behind the attack on Banguerro has not been identified. Both the FARC and the ELN and other illegal armed groups are known to operate in the area.
This Sunday, the Electoral Observation Mission reported that 20 candidates for the upcoming October elections have already been killed and a further 32 have received death threats.
