Mexico attack that killed 8 soldiers allegedly carried out by mercenaries from Colombia – Colombia News

Eleven former members of Colombia’s armed forces were arrested in Mexico for their alleged participation in a roadside bomb attack on a military convoy that killed eight Mexican soldiers last week.

The former soldiers were part of a group of 17 that allegedly carried out the attack and were arrested in a safe house in Los Reyes, a town on the border between the Jalisco and Michoacan states.

In a post on social media platform Twitter, President Gustavo Petro said that “the Los Reyes cartel hired the Colombian mercenaries to confront the Mexican state.”

Mercenarism should be banned with a high prison sentence, you don’t use Colombia’s public money, and the money of the American people even, to train people who then sell their military knowledge to the enemies of humanity. This is a betrayal of the Colombian homeland.

Gustavo Petro

The Foreign Ministry expressed their condolences to the Mexican soldiers who were killed in the attack with the alleged participation of the Colombian suspects in a press statement that was released on Tuesday.

The Colombian Foreign Ministry regrets these events, because more Colombian men and women travel to Mexico for tourism or are part of an important academic and scientific community that contributes to the cultural, social and economic wealth of that country.

Foreign Ministry

The ministry additionally urged to improve bilateral cooperation between the two countries “to confront criminal phenomena that have extended their networks between Colombia and Mexico” and “a growing phenomenon of co-opting military-trained personnel into criminal structures, serving as mercenaries.”

For more than a decade, former members of the Colombian armed forces have been hired by countries like the United Arab Emirates and Ukraine, private security companies and illegal armed groups to act as mercenaries all over the world.

Petro has expressed his opposition to this increasingly common phenomenon on multiple occasions since taking office in 2022.