Colombia bomb blast kills three children

The army was on alert for a rebel attack

A bomb has killed three children and injured 35 people in northern Colombia.

No group said it was responsible, but officials blamed the attack on the left-wing National Liberation Army (ELN) after President Andres Pastrana suspended talks with the group on Tuesday.

A police spokeswoman told the Associated Press the attack seemed to be an ELN reprisal for Tuesday's announcement by the president.

Colonel Guillermo Aranda, police chief of Antioquia district, said an ELN unit triggered the blast late on Wednesday night, then opened fired on the police station and homes in the town of San Francisco, 110 miles north-east of the capital Bogota.

Police target

The bomb appeared to have been targeted at the police station, but the blast instead damaged 25 nearby houses.

The guerrilla war has gone on 37 years

Two sisters aged seven and eight, and their 10-year-old cousin, were killed as a building collapsed.

The Colombian military had been on alert for a possible retaliation by the ELN, Colombia's second largest rebel group, since President Pastrana announced the talks freeze on Tuesday.

He said the rebels had raised new demands and rejected government proposals.

Quick to respond

When talks with the ELN have broken down before, the group has been quick to respond.

Unofficial talks had been taking place in neighbouring Venezuela between representatives of the government and the ELN.

Mr Pastrana had promised to end the 37-year-old guerrilla war before leaving office next year.

The government is still in talks with the larger Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), but correspondents say there has been little progress.

More than 40,000 people, mainly civilians, have lost their lives in the past decade alone because of the violence.