13 Die In Two Massacres In Colombia: Officials

At least 13 people died in two massacres in different parts of Colombia, authorities there said Sunday.

The killings took place in Antioquia department in the northwest and Cauca in the southwest, areas hit hard by violence this year.

Since January, Colombia has suffered dozens of massacres -- defined as attacks in which at least three people die -- making 2020 the worst year since the signing in 2016 of a peace agreement with the former guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

In the Antioquia town of Betania, five coffee growers and three other people were killed in an overnight attack at a farm, the authorities said.

Some "10 heavily armed men... entered a dormitory at the Gabriela farm" and "fired indiscriminately," Betania mayor Carlos Villada told AFP.

The killings were believed to be linked to drug trafficking.

Meantime, in the small town of Argelia in Cauca department, at least five people died and two were wounded in attacks by the same man in a pool hall, a bar and a discotheque.

Other recent attacks have also targeted nightspots.

Leftist rebels of the National Liberation Army (ELN); dissident members of FARC, the guerrilla group that became a political party with the 2016 peace accord; and narco-traffickers have clashed in the area over revenues from drug trafficking and illegal mining.

Cauca lies along a trafficking route linking Central America to the US.