Relatives reeling as they try to identify police cadets killed in Colombia attack

Bogota blast blamed on rebel group is country’s deadliest attack in years

BOGOTA— Before a car bomb exploded at a Colombia police academy this week, killing 21 people, the young cadets inside were busy pushing forward dreams of serving their country and helping lift their families out of poverty.

Maria Corredor, a tailor who works at the academy mending uniforms, has the distinct image in her mind of 22-year-old Cesar Ojeda blowing her a kiss as he walked joyfully through the campus Thursday morning.

Twenty-year-old Diego Alejandro Molina had j ust wrapped up a ceremony and was changing out of his honour guard uniform.

Others such as Ecuadorian Erika Chico, 21, were still inside their barracks, preparing for what they thought would be an uneventful day.

“They were just kids,” Corredor said, recalling those killed in the blast. “It became a hell within seconds.”

Relatives of cadets killed in the South American nation’s deadliest attack in 15 years are now enduring the cruel task of trying to identify their loved ones, many of whom were so badly mutilated they can only be identified through DNA. Many hailed from impoverished, conflict-ridden parts of Colombia and represented the prospect of a more prosperous future for their families.

“They’re young people whose dreams have been cut short because of the actions of some violent people,” said Victor Quiroga, a former teacher at the academy who helped comfort injured cadets in the bombing’s aftermath.

According to authorities, a one-armed explosives expert belonging to the country’s last remaining rebel group — the National Liberation Army, or ELN — carried out the bombing that also left over 70 wounded, some critically.

Investigators say Jose Rojas entered through a side gate used for deliveries, driving in quickly after it opened for a few motorcycles to exit. He then drove into the heart of the school, where the 1993-Nissan pickup loaded with 80 kilograms of pentolite exploded.

Rojas was later identified through the fingerprints on his one remaining hand.

As of Friday, Colombia’s forensic services office had only definitively identified four bodies as relatives gathered at the school, waiting for answers and collecting personal belongings, remnants of the young lives left behind.

“We’re going to carry with us the image of how he was in life,” said Jhon Diego Molina, the father of Diego Alejandro Molina. “Because we still don’t know how they’re going to return him to us, or what condition he is in.” The General Santander Police Academy in Bogota drew cadets from far corners of Colombia and throughout South America.

Jonathan Suescun, 21, was the son of a couple who makes a living selling empanadas in a small town located in Meta, a department in central Colombia where for many years paramilitaries and guerrilla groups waged a deadly war.

The young cadets had grown up in the later years of the conflict, likely thinking they were entering the police service in a new era in which crime in most major cities has diminished.