Colombia attack wave leaves seven dead as police posts and public buildings come under fire

# Colombia attack wave leaves seven dead as police posts and public buildings come under fire

A coordinated burst of bombings and gunfire in southwest Colombia killed at least seven people and injured dozens, with authorities blaming a dissident FARC faction.

The violence hit Cali and nearby towns on the event date of 2025-06-10, adding to a fast-moving security crisis that had already been intensified by the attempted assassination of a presidential candidate in Bogotá days earlier. The attacks were reported as a series of blasts and shootings aimed at police posts, municipal buildings and civilian targets in and around the country’s third-largest city.

French news agency France 24 said the attacks were part of a string of 24 coordinated bomb and gun assaults across southwest Colombia. Its reporting said police later put the death toll at seven, with 28 more people injured. DW reported at least two dead in Cali itself and said additional injuries brought the overall count to 36. Taken together, the supplied evidence shows the incident was widespread, multi-site and still unfolding when the reports were published.

The attacks were not confined to one city block or one municipality. The supplied reports place blasts in Cali neighborhoods including Meléndez, Manuela Beltrán and Los Mangos, with additional violence in Jamundí, Corinto, El Bordo, Caloto and Villa Rica. France 24 described police posts, municipal buildings and civilian targets as among the locations struck. DW said one bomb was believed to have been planted on a motorcycle, while other blasts damaged toll infrastructure and nearby public buildings.

Authorities and security analysts cited by France 24 blamed a dissident group that split from the once-powerful FARC guerrilla movement, with the Central General Staff, or EMC, named as the likely perpetrator. DW likewise said the Colombian Army's Third Division blamed the attacks on a faction led by Néstor Gregorio Vera, known as Iván Mordisco. The group had not clearly claimed responsibility in the supplied evidence, but France 24 reported that an EMC statement warned the public to stay away from military and police installations.

The timing sharpened the political shock. Both supplied sources linked the attacks to a country already on edge after the shooting of Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay in Bogotá. France 24 said the attack on Uribe had fueled concern about a return to the violence associated with the 1980s and 1990s. DW said the bombings came just days after that attempted assassination and just before President Gustavo Petro was due to visit Cali for a public demonstration supporting his labor reform.

The picture that emerges from the evidence is of a geographically spread assault designed to strain emergency services, unsettle residents and signal the reach of armed groups still operating in the southwest. Cali mayor Alejandro Eder said responders were on the scene and health teams were on alert. Fire crews, police and medical teams were deployed across the affected area as investigators worked to establish the full scope of the damage and whether the attack pattern was coordinated under a single command.

For residents, the immediate impact was fear, wreckage and uncertainty. AFP journalists cited by France 24 described tangled debris and damaged buildings in the affected towns. DW reported footage of injured people in the streets and bystanders helping them. The supplied evidence does not resolve who ordered the attacks or whether the EMC was acting alone, but it does show that Colombia's southwest was hit by one of the deadliest days of violence in the region in recent months.