9 dead and 54 wounded: attack on the police school in Bogotá

In a bomb on a police academy in the Colombian capital Bogotá, nine people were killed on Thursday. Another 54 were injured by the car bomb in the General Santander School, the authorities reported.

The head of state Iván Duque condemned the act in the short messaging service Twitter as a "miserable act of terrorism". It was the worst attack on Bogotá from the peace agreement with the Farc guerrillas in 2016.

The Colombian Defense Ministry, which reports to the national police, said nine people were killed in the attack. According to the municipal administration of Bogota, a total of 54 injured were divided into four hospitals. How many policemen were among the victims, it was not communicated.

Attorney General Nestór Humberto Martínez later made public the name of the man who allegedly allegedly perpetrated the attack. He used 80 kilograms of explosives. If he had had connections with an armed group it was not revealed. Even at suppositions that he himself died in the assassination, he said the authorities did not.

The attack had been committed shortly after a promotion ceremony in the police academy. On the TV images of the police school the burnt wreck of a vehicle and several ambulances were exposed.

The police blocked the place of attack. In the entire south of the Colombian capital there was a large contingent of security forces in action.

According to the attorney general, the perpetrator drove his car through the main entrance of the academy. When a beagle hit the controls, the driver accelerated and drove at high speed on the ground. There the car exploded. Several buildings have been damaged, the vehicle is burned.

An army medical service clerk told the radio that the vehicle with the bomb was suddenly driven to school, immediately after the explosion.

A neighborhood shopkeeper said that when they opened their shop, the shop window cracked and gray smoke rose above the police school. "It was terrible, terrible, like the end of the world," said 62-year-old Rosalba Jiménez.

President Duque made a trip to the northwest of the country and returned to the capital. "We Colombians reject all terrorism and we are united in the fight against him", he wrote on Twitter. The Colombians did not surrender to violence.

The predecessor of the Duque, Juan Manuel Santos, in November 2016 ended the decade-long guerrilla war with the far-right Farc rebels with a peace agreement. The Farc fighters then gave up their arms, now the group acts as a political party.

The resumption of peace talks with the guerrilla group ELN makes the right-hand Duque dependent on the release of all its hostages. The group of about 1800 fighters, considered the last guerrilla group in the country, speaks of "unacceptable unilateral conditions".