schema:articleBody
| - Two children were shot and wounded when men thought to be members of the ELN rebel group attacked vehicles on a road in Colombia, authorities said Tuesday. The children, aged 12 and 13, were hit when assailants opened fire on the bus they were passengers in as its driver tried to reverse out of the path of danger, a police official told AFP. They were taken to a nearby medical center. It happened as armed men attacked the bus and two trucks on a route in the country's northwest late Monday, setting fire to all three vehicles. The army said in a statement the attackers were members of the ELN. The security forces have since regained control of the route that links the city of Medellin to the coast. The National Liberation Army (ELN) is the last rebel group operating in Colombia since a 2016 peace deal ended a half-century of civil war between armed groups and the government. The ELN, listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, European Union and Colombian government, has about 2,300 active combatants and a vast support network. The government on Tuesday unveiled a list of 11 presumed ELN members it intends to extradite to the United States for drug trafficking -- the first time it would do so. Four of them are already in custody: Yamit Rodríguez (alias Choncha), Franco Ruiz (Motorola), Jose Gabriel Alvarez (Gabriel) and Henry Trigos. President Ivan Duque on Monday signed an extradition order for Alvarez, wanted in the United States for drug trafficking. The ELN denies any ties to him. "It is now up to the ELN to tell us clearly whether or not it is willing to make peace, and if it is, to put the drug trafficking business aside forever," said Miguel Ceballos, the government's high commissioner for peace, announcing the extradition list. Duque had called off peace talks with the ELN after it detonated a car bomb at a police academy in Bogota that killed 22 people in January 2019. Colombia is facing its worst wave of violence since the signing of the 2016 deal, with dissident FARC rebels who refused to lay down arms, ELN guerillas, armed drug-trafficking groups and rightwing paramilitaries all battling for control of the lucrative cocaine and illegal mining markets. Colombia is the world's largest producer of cocaine, and the United States its biggest consumer. lv/dl/vel/rs/mlr/to
|