Gunmen Kill 33 at Colombian Easter Festival
BOGOTA, Colombia — Hooded gunmen opened fire on about 500 peasants at an Easter festival in a village in northern Colombia, killing 33 of them, police and witnesses said Monday.
Police said the attack came during a dance celebrating Easter in the village of La Mejor Esquina, near the town of Buenavista in the province of Cordoba, about 250 miles northwest of Bogota. In addition to the 33 killed, 8 people were seriously wounded, including 3 women and a girl.
Witnesses said 10 hooded gunmen jumped from a car at about 8 p.m. Sunday, shouting: “Kill them! Kill them!”
“The gunmen ordered everyone down onto the ground, and then they opened fire” at random, Enrique Llorente Lopez, the mayor of Buenavista said in an interview with the radio network RCN. “They apparently were trying to shoot the men.”
The first reports of the killings gave no clues as to the identity of the gunmen or what their motives were.
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