Leaders of Colombia and Ecuador trade allegations after Gustavo Petro says 27 charred bodies found on country’s border. Published On 17 Mar 202617 Mar 2026Bogota, Colombia – Colombian President Gustavo Petro has said that 27 charred bodies were discovered on his country’s joint border with Ecuador, just one day after suggesting the Ecuadorean military may have bombed Colombian territory.“The bombings along the Colombia-Ecuador border do not appear to be the work of armed groups—they don’t have aircraft—nor of the Colombian security forces. I did not give that order,” wrote Petro in a post on X on Tuesday morning.Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of listThe accusation comes amid a US-backed Ecuadorean military campaign against armed groups in the region launched earlier this month; Ecuador’s President Daniel Noboa maintained that all strikes have occurred within his country’s borders.The dispute began during a cabinet meeting on Monday night, where Petro speculated about the origins of a bomb which he said was “dropped from an aeroplane” near Colombia’s southern border with Ecuador.“We’re going to thoroughly investigate the circumstances – it happened very close to the border with Ecuador – which somewhat confirms my suspicion, but we need to investigate thoroughly: they’re bombing us from Ecuador, and it’s not the armed groups,” said the president.Later on Tuesday, Colombia’s Ministry of National Defence issued a statement saying security forces and experts had been deployed to the area “to assess the condition of this explosive device in order to determine its origin and proceed with its destruction”.Noboa dismissed Petro’s accusations on Tuesday morning, writing on X: “President Petro, your declarations are false, we are acting in our territory, not yours.” Advertisement The exact details of the attack are yet to be established, according to Elizabeth Dickinson, deputy Latin America director at the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think tank, “It’s very unclear if this came from Ecuador, what happened, who exactly was hit.”But the alleged bombing comes just weeks after the United S …
