Bogota - At least 15 people were killed and 16 kidnapped in a 24-hour period by leftist rebels and to extreme-right paramilitaries, Colombian authorities said yesterday. Police said five people were shot to death in Tiquisio, some 980 km north of Bogota, by guerrillas of the leftist National Liberation Army (ELN).
Meanwhile, an AUC death squad burst into a village near Fundacion, in Magdalena province, killed two people and took 10 hostages. Police said AUC paramilitaries also killed two people in Tulua, in Valle province, and ombudsman Mr Alberto Morales of Guadalupe, in Antioquia province, said the AUC killed six people there - all since Tuesday.