Ecuadoran authorities are trying to detemrine if five students and professors from Mexico "carrying out investigations in the zone" were killed in Colombia's March 1 air-strike on a FARC guerilla camp in the Ecuadoran Amazon. At least one Mexican student apparently wounded in the attack has asserted that five of their comrades were killed, according to Ecuador's Security Minister Gustavo Larrea. Mexico's Foreign Relations Department said it is "working with Ecuador and Colombia to corroborate reports of two Mexicans who possibly died in the incident."

According to reports on the Mexico-based radical-left website OkupacheWeb the casualties were members of the Mexican FARC Support Group from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM). The wounded student, Lucia Andrea Morett, is reportedly recovering in an Ecuadoran military hospital. News reports vary, claiming up to three Mexican students wounded, and claims of up to ten dead. (AP, Reuters, AFP, March 6)

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