“Those who carried out this attack… are terrorists, fascists and drug traffickers,” Petro mentioned on X.
“I want our very best soldiers to confront them,” he added.
Posting a video on X of upturned autos and craters littered alongside the highway in Cauca, native Governor Octavio Guzman described the bombing as “indiscriminate”.
“Cauca cannot continue to face this barbarity alone,” Guzman wrote.
Witnesses advised the AFP information company that the blast was so highly effective they had been knocked again a number of metres.
A spate of smaller assaults have additionally been reported in Cauca since Friday, the governor added, together with one that focused a army base within the metropolis of Cali that injured two people.
Defence Minister Pedro Arnulfo Sánchez mentioned a bus stuffed with explosives did not detonate earlier within the day within the Cauca area, saying it was carried out by members of a drug-trafficking cartel.
The newest assaults come one month out from Colombia’s presidential election on 31 May.
Petro, himself a former guerrilla fighter, has been pursuing a controversial peace technique with varied armed factions which has seen intermittent ceasefires and durations of comparatively little violence. His time period will finish later this yr.
(*14*) dissident offshoots of the Farc function throughout Colombia, lots of them with in depth involvement in drug trafficking. Efforts by Petro’s left-wing authorities to start out peace talks with them have been unsuccessful.
Colombia is holding presidential elections on 31 May. Left-wing candidate Ivan Cepeda, who’s endorsed by Petro, has referred to as for extra negotiation efforts with the rebels.
Opposition right-wing candidates Paloma Valencia and Abelardo De la Espriella have promised a crackdown on the insurgents.
