At least 14 people were killed in attacks in southwestern Colombia and the perpetrators were still unknown, authorities said Sunday.

Most of the victims were residents of small villages in the Narino and Valle de Cauca department.

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the principal rebel organization in Colombia, recently launched an offensive against several targets in Narino province.

Colombia has been locked in a four-decade civil war, the longest in Latin America, in which government forces, leftist guerrillas and far-right paramilitaries fight one another. The conflicts kill more than 3,000 people a year.

(Xinhua News Agency February 28, 2005)