BOGOT&Aacute;: The death toll in a weekend highway bombing in Colombia rose to 20, with another 36 people injured, the local department&#39;s governor said Sunday on X. The attack &mdash; which local and national officials are blaming on armed groups &mdash; comes one month before the country holds presidential elections on May 31. Cauca Department Governor Octavio Guzman described the bombing as the area&#39;s &quot;most brutal and ruthless attack against the civilian population in decades,&quot; adding that it left a crater 200 cubic meters in size. Fifteen women and five men, all adults, were killed, he said. Of the injured, three people remain in intensive care. Five children were also injured but &quot;are out of danger.&quot; The massive blast left buses and vans mangled on the Pan-American Highway in the restive southwestern region of Colombia. Several cars were flipped over by the force of the explosion. Military chief Hugo Lopez told a news conference on Saturday that the bomb had exploded after assailants stopped traffic by blocking the road with a bus and another vehicle. &quot;It is a terrorist attack against the civilian population,&quot; Lopez said. The attack comes just over one month ahead of national elections, in which voters will pick a successor to leftist President Gustavo Petro. &quot;Those who carried out this attack... are terrorists, fascists and drug traffickers,&quot; Petro said on X. &quot;I want our very best soldiers to confront them.&quot; Petro blamed the bombing on Ivan Mordisco, the South American country&#39;s most-wanted criminal, whom the president has compared to late cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar. The violence came after a bomb attack Friday on a military base in Cali, Colombia&#39;s third-largest city, injured two people and set off a string of attacks in the Valle del Cauca and Cauca departments. According to Lopez, 26 attacks have been recorded in the two departments over the past two days. Authorities have boosted military and police presence in the areas, Defense Minister Pedro Sanchez said Saturday. Colombia has a history of armed groups &mdash; which finance their operations through drug trafficking, illegal mining and extortion &mdash; attempting to influence elections through violence. FARC remnants who rejected a 2016 peace deal with the government have been actively trying to disrupt stalled peace talks with Petro. Security is one of the central issues of the presidential election. Political violence was brought into sharp focus last June, when young conservative presidential frontrunner Miguel Uribe Turbay was shot in broad daylight while campaigning in the capital Bogota. He died two months later. Leftist Senator Ivan Cepeda, an architect of Petro&#39;s controversial policy of negotiating with armed groups, is ahead in polls. He is trailed by right-wing candidates Abelardo de la Espriella and Paloma Valencia, both of whom have pledged to take a hard line against rebel groups. All three have reported receiving death threats and are campaigning under heavy security.

Americas

The attack — which local and national officials are blaming on armed groups — comes one month before the country holds presidential elections on May 31.

Colombia road bombing death toll rises to 20	

JOHANNESBURG: A bus veered off a road and plunged down an embankment on a steep mountain pass in northern South Africa, killing at least 42 people and leaving another 49 passengers injured, authorities said Monday. The crash happened around 6 pm Sunday on the N1 highway near the town of Louis Trichardt, around 400 kilometers (248 miles) north of the capital, Pretoria. Seven children&nbsp;The Transport Ministry said in a statement that the victims included seven children, 17 men and 18 women. It said six people were critically injured and another 31 had serious injuries and had been taken to several hospitals.&nbsp;One critically injured child was airlifted to a hospital, the ministry said. Images released by authorities showed the blue bus lying upside down in the embankment with rescuers working underneath it to search for victims. The Limpopo provincial government said rescue operations continued late into Sunday night. The bus was traveling to Zimbabwe and was carrying Zimbabwean and Malawian nationals who were on their way to their home countries, the Transport Ministry said. It said the cause of the crash was not yet known. &lsquo;Deep condolences&rsquo;&nbsp;In a statement, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa offered &ldquo;his deep condolences to the nations of Zimbabwe and Malawi who have lost compatriots.&rdquo; &ldquo;This sadness is compounded by the fact that this incident has taken place during our annual transport month, where we place a special focus on the importance of safety on our roads,&quot; Ramaphosa said. Last year, 45 people were killed in a bus crash in the same Limpopo province when their vehicle veered off a bridge and into a ravine. An 8-year-old girl was the only survivor of that crash.&nbsp; That bus was carrying mainly Botswana nationals who were traveling to an Easter church gathering in South Africa.

Africa

A bus crash in northern South Africa killed at least 42 people and injured 49. The bus, carrying Zimbabwean and Malawian nationals, veered off a mountain pass. Authorities are still investigating the cause.

Articles tagged with "Bus crash"

Colombia road bombing death toll rises to 20

Bus crash in South Africa kills at least 42 people