Three women have been killed in the Colombian capital, Bogota, in what the authorities say was a terrorist attack.
An explosion occurred at a shopping centre in the busy Zona Rosa area. Eleven other people were injured in the attack.
Bogota's mayor Enrique Penalosa said that one of those who died was from France.
The authorities say they believe the explosion was caused by a small bomb in a ladies toilet.
The
attack happened on a busy Saturday afternoon, when the Andino shopping
centre was full of people buying presents for Father's Day, being
celebrated on Sunday.
A 23-year-old French woman who had been
working as a volunteer at a school in the south of the city was the
first victim to be identified.
The two others were aged 27 and 31, but their nationalities have not yet been released.
It is not yet known who was behind the attack.
The
rebel group the National Liberation Army (ELN), the second largest in
the country after the Farc, has used one of its Twitter accounts to
condemn the attack and say it shared the victims' pain.
They say
those who are accusing them of being behind the attack are trying to
jeopardise peace talks, which are continuing with the government.
President Juan Manuel Santos visited the mall later on Saturday night and made a statement to the press.
"I do not want to speculate on who could be behind this attack," he said, adding that an investigation was under way.
He called the attack "a vile, cruel, cowardly act" and vowed to capture those responsible.
Everyone is asking who is behind the explosion, which the authorities are calling a "terrorist act".
I asked Bogota's Security Secretary Daniel Mejía that question, and
whether it could be a local or foreign group that carried out the
explosion. He said nothing could be discounted.
The authorities
have been closely monitoring the ELN, which was behind a February bomb
attack that left a policeman dead and 26 people injured, 24 of them
police officers.
There has been a surge in clashes and operations
between the security forces and the ELN in the past few months, as the
government and the rebel group try to negotiate a peace deal, similar to the one reached with the Farc in November 2016.
But the ELN mainly attacks security forces, and not civilian targets in the sort of operation we saw on Saturday.
Nonetheless, as Mr Mejía says, nothing can be discounted at this point.
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