Colombian police chief General Oscar Naranjo said Monday that the FARC guerrilla group are responsible for Sunday’s attack on the town of Guapi, Cauca. The bomber was a man of between 45 and 50, tricked by the guerrillas into carrying explosives, and not a child as previously suggested, reports El Tiempo.
The man, who was killed in the blast, has been identified as Pastor Carrillo, a father of eleven.
Police say that the rebel group often use trickery to fool people into carrying bombs, which the rebels then detonate when the mule is close to the target. The unwitting suicide bombers are often poor, or children.
“In a very tragic way, the person carrying these explosive ended up literally disappearing in the blast. The system that the FARC is using is a criminal system of completely degraded barbarians,” said the general.
Police say that the attack was targeted at the police station.
The bomb exploded Sunday night in the street in Guapi, on Colombia’s Pacific Coast, between the police station and a church during Mass, killing the bomber and injuring two policemen and nine civilians.
The government blamed the FARC for the death of a 12-year-old boy killed in Nariño in March, when a package he was holding exploded.
