Last Friday, just before 2 am, heavily armed “sicarios” (assassins), fired into a crowd at a bar in the Guanteros entertainment district of normally peaceful Envigado, a suburb of Medellin. The toll was eight dead and 23 wounded. None of the fatal victims had a criminal record and one was a US citizen who had recently moved to the area. Two off duty policemen were in the Guru bar at the time and were injured while returning fire. The perpetrators escaped from the scene on a high cylinder motorcycle, the preferred mode of transportation for killers in Colombia. Witnesses claim that the motorcycle was followed by a car with several male occupants, who may have been the enforcers, those ensuring that the job was done.

Shootings with more than one victim aren’t unusual in the Medellin area, where a war raging between drug trafficking gangs has pushed the numbers for the metropolitan area to over  2,000 fatalities in 2009 and well over 1,000 so far this year. Such figures are a stark reminder of the days when the cartels ruled Colombia and morgues were overflowing with corpses of young men. While recent statistics are still far from the record levels reached during that epoch, the rising tally is worrisome, reversing the previous trend which saw falling numbers, treading around 800 in 2007, a total comparable to any major American city.

What’s unusual about the Envigado massacre is the indiscriminate way in which the killers sprayed the bar with bullets, something not seen since the days of Pablo Escobar in this city, which had the dubious honor of being the drug kingpin‘s central during the 80’s. According to police, the intended target, a  drug trafficker wanted by the law, escaped the scene unharmed and has apparently voluntarily surrendered to the police, seeking protection from those who wish him dead. Police say the Envigado shooting was part of the ongoing territorial war between “Sebastian” and “Valenciano”, leaders of two major gangs. US and Colombian authorities are offering multimillion dollar ransoms for their capture.

The incident has provoked a strong reaction from the president, Alvaro Uribe, who promised immediate action to hunt down members of criminal gangs in Colombia, particularly in the Medellin area.