Reports from Colombia say suspected rebels from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC have attacked several towns in the southwest of the country.

Several people are reported to have been killed and fighting is said to be continuing.

The attacks came a day after the FARC announced the end of the twenty-day unilateral ceasefire it declared over the Christmas period.

In another development, the Colombian attorney-general's office says its agents have arrested six suspected right-wing paramilitaries accused of involvement in the massacre of more than fifty peasants in the northeast of the country last year.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service