BOGOTA (Reuters) - Leftist rebels killed at least six civilians in a rural Colombian town in an apparent retaliation for the resistance of its residents to allow the rebels to forcibly recruit youngsters there, officials said on Sunday.
Officials have found six bodies in the hamlet of El Eden in southwestern Cauca province but residents say another seven are missing are are believed to have died in the Saturday attack by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the nation's largest insurgency.
''We believe there are 13 dead,'' a Cauca police spokesman told Reuters by telephone, adding that several homes in the village were also destroyed.
It was not immediately clear if the killings were selective or if the the victims died in an all-out assault on the village.
The police spokesman said the FARC rebels had entered the town about two months ago to forcibly recruit the young men there. Residents resisted the rebels, driving them from the town. RCN television reported that the rebels made another recruiting mission to El Eden last week but again were repelled by the townspeople.
''The FARC apparently decided to retaliate,'' the spokesman said.
The 17,000-strong FARC began peace talks with the government nearly two years ago but the two sides have failed to reach a cease-fire agreement. The rebels rose up against the state in the 1960s in a civil war that has left 35,000 people dead in the past decade alone.