Guerrillas blow up Colombian oil pipeline

Colombian guerrillas have blown up an oil pipeline in the east of the country, the first such attack this year.

Officials from the state oil company, Ecopetrol, said they'd suspended pumping from the oilfields in Arauca to the port of Covenas while repairs were being carried out.

No group has admitted responsibility.

Last year there were ninety-seven attacks on the pipeline, a record since it came onstream in 1986.

Most of them were carried out by the second-largest guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service