Colombia's right-wing paramilitary units have killed at least 120 people across the country over the past four days in a wave of attacks a Colombian archbishop described as "demented".
Observers fear the onslaught, which ends a Christmas ceasefire accepted by the paramilitary squads, could derail peace talks between the government and members of the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the country's most powerful rebel force. Both sides are scheduled to resume talks today.
The latest paramilitary attacks cost the lives of 10 rural workers in the towns of La Hormiga, on the Ecuador border, and Sabanlarga, in the north-west. Some reports put the number of dead at La Hormiga at 25.
The killers are believed to belong to the far-right United SelfDefense Units of Colombia (AUC), police said.
The stepped-up attacks may be in revenge for a December 28th battle in which FARC guerrillas overran a paramilitary stronghold.
The attacks are also part of an attempt by the AUC to be considered important enough to engage in peace talks with the government - something the FARC said it will absolutely refuse to accept.
"But nothing justifies these demented actions," Archbishop Alberto Giraldo of Medellin said.
Earlier yesterday 14 workers were shot to death in the town of Toluviejo on the Caribbean coast, said Col Rodolfo Palomina, a spokesman for Sucre province police.
Six more people died in attacks around Antioquia department in Colombia's Andean north-west, said police in the provincial capital of Medellin. Other attacks were reported in the departments of Bolivar, Cesar, Sucre and Santander.
The killings occurred one day after the AUC was blamed for the deaths of some 30 people in a remote country house in the Caribbean department of Magdalena, said Col Octavio Grajajes, the region's police chief. Col Grajajes said the killers set more than a dozen people on fire before fleeing by boat along the Magdalena River.
Yesterday, a right-wing commando chief said the violence had the aim of forcing the Colombian government to grant AUC the rightists the type of political legitimacy that it is giving the rebels.