COLOMBIA’S vice-president said on Tuesday that her security team found more than 7kg of explosives buried next to a rural road that leads to her home in the south-western province of Cauca. 

Francia Marquez posted on Twitter: “Members of my security team found a device with more than 7 kilos of explosive material on the road that leads to my family residence in the village of Yolombo, in Suarez, Cauca.”

Ms Marquez said a sniffer dog found the bomb, which was made of ammonium nitrate, powdered aluminium and shrapnel, and that anti-explosives officers blew it up in a controlled explosion on Monday.

The vice-president said considering the characteristics and location of the device there was “plenty of evidence that it was a new attempt against my life.”

Ms Marquez, who has faced a number of previous threats, insisted she “will not stop working day by day to achieve the total peace that Colombia dreams of and requires.”

Ms Marquez is Colombia’s first black vice-president. She was elected last September along with President Gustavo Petro, an economist and former guerilla fighter, who is attempting to raise taxes on the wealthy, increase government spending and start peace talks with the nation’s remaining rebel groups.

Before she entered politics, Ms Marquez led protests against mining companies and illegal miners operating in Cauca and was forced to leave her home village of Suarez due to numerous death threats.

The environment activist rose to fame last year when she participated in presidential primaries, and helped President Petro secure votes in the nation’s Afro-Colombian communities and also among women and young people inspired by her life story. 

Ms Marquez currently heads the Ministry of Equality, a new agency that seeks to ensure women and ethnic minorities have equal access to the government’s social programmes.

This comes after the killing of three people, in the Alfonso Gomez neighbourhood in the city of Cucuta in the Norte de Santander department of the country on Monday.

The latest victims were Jose Francisco Quintero Robles and Darkis Lorena Acevedo Villamizar, while the other man remains unidentified.

The killings were the second major massacre this year after four people were murdered in a gun attack on the night of January 1 in the municipality of Rio de Oro, part of the Cesar department. 

There were 94 massacres recorded last year, while in 2021 the figure was 95.