(This is from the Chicago Tribune. I find it makes me remember the "two boys on the railroad tracks" incident some years ago.)

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9 BACKPACKERS FOUND SLAIN IN COLOMBIA

REBELS ACTIVE IN AREA, BUT OFFICIALS NOT READY TO
MAKE ACCUSATIONS

From Tribune News Services
February 15, 2001

BOGOTA, Colombia -- Nine young Colombian hikers were found slain execution-style in the Andes Mountains, police said Wednesday.

The report came as the government renewed peace talks with Colombia's main rebel force.

The bodies of the six men and three women, most with one bullet to the head, were pulled from a ravine Tuesday near southwest Colombia's Purace National Park. Officials would not speculate on who killed the hikers or why, but police and military authorities noted that the country's largest guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which attended the peace talks Wednesday, is active in the area where the killings took place.

"Given that these were people dedicated to recreation and far removed from any kind of conflict, [the case] is extremely worrisome," said Gen. Ernesto Gilibert, the National Police chief. "We have to clarify whether it was a misunderstanding or simply a homicide or a robbery."

The hikers set out Feb. 2 by bus from the capital, Bogota, to Huila state for a weeklong hike through a wilderness area rich in pre-Columbian archeological sites and home to the 15,800-foot Purace volcano. When relatives had not heard from the trekkers for several days, they got worried and called authorities.

"Everybody told me not to worry because they were OK, but I knew in my heart that they were not," said Martha Ramirez de Serrano, mother of one of the victims, 24-year-old Victor Serrano.

In the offices of a Bogota workers' cooperative where seven of those killed had worked in recreational programs, dozens of family members hugged, sobbed and made funeral preparations. Seven of the hikers were from Bogota and two from Huila.

A farmer spotted the bodies in the ravine Sunday, but it took several days to reach the remains and remove them. The officers initially assumed the dead were villagers; killings of peasants are an almost daily occurrence in the 37-year war that pits rebels against the military and right-wing paramilitary militias.

But when rescuers saw the backpackers' bright clothing and light-skinnedfeatures, they realized they were probably not from the region, which has apredominantly Indian population.

The victims' identification papers were nowhere to be found. Authorities identified the hikers based on descriptions--one by a tattoo of a panther on his back.

Jose Ramirez, father of slain 30-year-old Rosalba Ramirez, said he warned his daughter not to make the trip.

"With so many massacres taking place, I had told her not to go, but she insisted," Ramirez said.

Cauca state police commander Hernando Arciniegas said the hikers were probably killed Saturday.

Meanwhile, the peace talks resumed, with both sides signaling an interest in reducing the war's impact on civilians.

[snip]

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