7 people killed by gunmen "carrying large weapons" in house near Colombia's Medellin
Gunmen killed seven people in a house near the Colombian city of Medellin on Tuesday night, police said.
"At around 07:30 at night, here in the rural area of the municipality of Rionegro, a regrettable incident occurred in which seven people were killed," local police officer Colonel Carlos Andres Martinez Romero said in a statement.
"Ten people carrying large weapons broke into a house" in the Cabeceras area, around 12 miles from Medellin, Martinez said.
Police have offered a reward equivalent to around $12,000 for information leading to the perpetrators.
The military deployed a "plan to blockade the municipalities surrounding Cabeceras in order to locate the perpetrators," the army said on social media.
Authorities have not yet provided details of the victims' identities.
The gunmen fled in a convoy of several cars and motorbikes, according to local media.
Images released by the Rionegro mayor's office show several forensic experts working in the rain on an unpaved road.
"I have called a security council... to put a stop to this wave of violence," Rionegro mayor Jorge Rivas said in a post on social media.
This year, authorities have arrested several drug lords in Rionegro and the surrounding areas.
Powerful cartels such as the Gulf Clan, the world's leading cocaine producer, operate in the region, local rights groups say. According to the U.S. State Department, the Gulf Clan "uses violence and intimidation to control the narcotics trafficking routes, cocaine processing laboratories, speedboat departure points, and clandestine landing strips."
In 2022, the Gulf Clan drug cartel shut down dozens of towns in northern Colombia for four days in reaction to its leader, Dairo Antonio Úsuga David - also known as Otoniel - being extradited to the U.S. for trial. It warned that anyone who disobeyed the stay-at-home order risked being shot or having their vehicle burned.
Colombia is the world's largest cocaine producer, cultivating over 230,000 hectares of the main ingredient, the coca leaf, in 2022, according to the United Nations.
Cocaine is routinely trafficked from Colombia to Central America, the United States and Europe. Earlier this month, authorities seized two semisubmersible vessels loaded with nearly 5 tons of cocaine off the Pacific coast of Colombia. Authorities said that officers have now seized at least 13 "narco subs" so far this year. The Colombian navy said it intercepted 20 semisubmersibles in all of 2023, leading to the seizure of 30 tons of cocaine and more than 5 tons of marijuana.