Bogota: At least 20 people have been killed in a car bomb attack in the Colombian capital of Bogotá, police say.
Dozens more were injured in the blast which happened at 09:30 (14:30 GMT) on Thursday in the south of the city.
The car’s driver, who was also killed, has been identified as a 57-year-old man. No group has said it was behind the explosion.
President Ivan Duque described it as a “crazy terrorist act” and declared three days of national mourning.
The grey Nissan Patrol entered the compound of the General Santander police academy where a promotion ceremony for cadets was being held.
When the car was stopped by guards at a checkpoint, the driver accelerated and hit a wall, at which point the car exploded.
The blast shattered windows of nearby apartments and houses. “[It was] horrible, horrible, it seemed like the end of the world,” 62-year-old Rosalba Jimenez, who was opening her shop near the school, told media.
At least 68 people were injured but the majority of those have since been discharged from hospital, officials say.
One of the victims was an Ecuadorian woman, Ecuador’s President Lenín Moreno said.
The vehicle was carrying 80kg (176lb) of the powerful explosive pentolite, which has been used in the past by Colombia’s rebel guerrilla groups, said Attorney General Néstor Humberto Martínez.
He named the driver as José Aldemar Rojas Rodríguez, who was killed in the blast.
The suspect had no criminal record and lived in the northern department of Boyacá, where the rebel group the National Liberation Army (ELN) is still present, Colombian newspaper El Tiempo reports (in Spanish).
But correspondents say there is no initial indication that ELN was behind the explosion or that the driver had any links to the group.
