The Colombian government offered about $ 795,000 as a reward for information leading to the capture of those responsible for the attack the day before against a helicopter in which President Iván Duque was traveling, near the border with Venezuela.
“A reward of up to 3,000 million pesos is offered for that person (…) that allows to find those responsible for this terrorist attack,” Defense Minister Diego Molano said in a video to the media from the city of Cúcuta, in Norte de Santander.
The general director of the police, General Jorge Vargas, specified that the shots were fired from a neighborhood in the same city, near the airport from which the presidential aircraft took off.
“A search team was deployed on that sector and two rifles were found”: an AK-47 whose registration number is being investigated and another caliber 7.52 “with the mark of the Venezuelan armed forces”, as well as 20 vanilla shots added.
Duque was traveling with his defense and interior ministers as well as the governor of Norte de Santander aboard the helicopter that left Sardinata for Cúcuta.
Images released by the presidency show several bullet holes in the tail and main propeller. None of the occupants were injured.
The attack was condemned by the UN, the United States, the European Union and several Latin American countries.
During the afternoon, the president attended an event in the Catatumbo region, one of the areas with the most drug cultivation in the country, the main cocaine exporter in the world.
FARC dissidents, ELN militants and other armed groups dispute the revenues from drug trafficking in this area under fire, taking advantage of the 2,200-kilometer porous border between Colombia and Venezuela.
11 days ago, a car bomb exploded inside a military installation in Cúcuta, injuring 36 people. At the base were US soldiers advising on the fight against drug trafficking.
The government blamed the National Liberation Army (ELN), the last recognized guerrilla in the country, but pointed out that dissidents may also be behind the attack that marginalized themselves from the peace pact signed in 2016 with the FARC.
Duque has repeatedly accused President Nicolás Maduro of sheltering dissidents and troops from the ELN in Venezuelan territory, a guerrilla group that announced a change in command on Thursday.
Bogotá and Caracas broke off relations shortly after Duque came to power in August 2018.
The country is going through the worst outbreak of violence since the signing of peace, with numerous massacres that the government attributes to groups that finance themselves from drug trafficking.
