Officials of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are trying to sort out details about bombings at four church buildings in southwestern Colombia Tuesday.
Dale Bills, a spokesman for the LDS Church, said Wednesday officials were just learning about the bombings, which police are blaming on Marxist rebels in the volatile region."We are saddened to learn that four of our chapels have been slightly damaged by terrorist bombs in Colombia. Gratefully, the explosions caused no injuries. Such misdirected attacks do nothing but temporarily deprive Colombian citizens of a place to worship God as their conscience directs," Bills said.
There were no injuries to LDS Church members or missionaries, but one man was killed and 20 other people were hurt in a separate blast, officials said. Bogota, the country's capital, is located in in the center of the country. Cali, a city of about 2 million people, is located in southwestern Colombia.
Church leaders had not yet made a decision whether to remove missionaries or church personnel from the country, Bills said.
A missionary in the Colombia Cali Mission contacted Wednesday said three bombs went off Tuesday. Two of the bombs were tossed from cars and one was placed at a gate, which blew the gate off, the missionary said. One of them damaged a ceiling inside a meetinghouse, but there was not extensive damage to any of the three buildings.
Police blamed the National Liberation Army (ELN), Colombia's second-largest rebel force, for targeting LDS Church in Cali.
It is thought the ELN, heavily influenced by radical Roman Catholic priests, attacked the Mormons in a protest against what they see as excessive U.S. involvement in Colombia, police said.
Last May, an ELN unit burst into a Catholic church in Cali and kidnapped more than 160 worshippers, whom they released after receiving ransom payments.
In a separate attack in southwest Cauca province Monday, one man died and 20 people were injured when ELN fighters blew up a bridge near an illegal roadblock the rebels had set up across the Pan-American Highway.
A television reporter and his cameraman were among those injured by flying shrapnel and debris.
Approximately 129,000 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints reside in Colombia.
The LDS Church has four stakes in Cali, one of the major population centers in the South American country. There are 23 stakes and four missions in the entire country of Colombia. The missions are Colombia Cali, Colombia Bogota, Colombia Barranquilla and Colombia Bogota North.
The church's only temple is the Bogota Colombia Temple and is located in the Niza section of Bogota, about 10 miles from the downtown area.
Colombia, racked by a three-decade-old civil conflict, is ranked as one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists.
At least seven died there last year, and 10 others were forced to go into exile after receiving threats from the armed groups fighting the civil war, which has claimed more than 35,000 lives in the past 10 years alone.
In September 1988, the LDS Church pulled American missionaries out of the country because of the volatile political state of the country. Despite these problems, missionary work continued to progress, according to the Deseret News 1999-2000 LDS Church Almanac. The Colombia Barranquilla Mission was formed in 1988. Since then, three other stakes have been created in the area.
Reuters News Service and Chicago Tribune reports contributed to this story.