BOGOTA – Three people were killed and two others injured when a rebel landmine detonated near the northwestern Colombian town of Dabeiba, authorities said Friday.

The blast occurred Thursday night in the rural hamlet of La Balsita when the five victims – all members of the same family – unwittingly walked into a minefield, municipal government secretary Wesly Uran Ramirez told Efe.

Three adults died and two children, ages 10 and 12, were wounded, he said.

The youngsters, who had their legs blown off by the mine, were airlifted by the military to Medellin, capital of Antioquia province.

Uran said the mines were laid by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, the country’s largest guerrilla group.

From 1999 through the end of September, 1,792 Colombians lost their lives in landmine explosions, while another 6,242 were injured, according to the government. The Andean nation accounts for 10 percent of the world’s total landmine-related casualties during the past decade.

Both the FARC and the security forces have used landmines over the course of Colombia’s decades-long internal conflict.

The Colombian resort city of Cartagena is to host the second international conference to review progress on the 10-year-old Ottawa Convention prohibiting anti-personnel mines, set for Nov. 29-Dec. 4. EFE