FARC rebels knock out power to 5 cities in Colombia
FARC guerrillas blew up an electricity transmission tower in southwestern Colombia, knocking out power to Tumaco, one of the country's main Pacific ports, the Nariño Power Company, or Cedenar, said.
The attack occurred on Saturday in a rural area outside Barbacoas, a city in Nariño province, the Cedenar, which provides electric service in the affected region, said in a statement.
The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, blew up a transmission tower in early June in an area known as Inda Zabaleta, leaving about 250,000 people without electricity.
Saturday's attack left about 260,000 residents of the cities of Magui, Roberto Payan, Barbacoas, Ricaurte and Tumaco without power, the Cedenar said.
Soldiers, meanwhile, foiled an attack by the FARC on a pipeline in southern Colombia near the border with Ecuador, the army said.
FARC rebels placed 48 charges on the pipeline, but army bomb experts deactivated the explosives planted on a stretch of the San Miguel-Orito pipeline in Valle del Guamuez, a city in Putumayo, the army said in a statement.
"The (soldiers') actions prevented great damage not just to petroleum infrastructure, but to a route that links Putumayo province to the neighboring country of Ecuador," the army said.
The FARC has staged attacks in recent weeks on the electric grid, oil facilities and highways, affecting residents of the provinces of Putumayo, Cauca and Nariño.
The government and the FARC have been holding peace talks in Havana, but they have yet to reach a final agreement to end Colombia's decades-old internal conflict. EFE
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