Paraguay’s government has linked the Paraguayan People’s Army (EPP) and an organized-crime group to the deadly attack on a police post in Naranjito, Ybyrarobaná district, Canindeyú department, on the night of July 21.
Between 20 and 30 armed attackers opened fire on Police Post No. 4 with 5.56mm rifles before burning the building and several vehicles with petrol bombs. Two officers, Atilio Martínez Barrios and Herminio Ojeda González, and civilian employee Josemar Escobar Piris were killed. A third officer was wounded.
Interior Minister Enrique Riera said ballistic evidence connected one weapon used in the assault to an attack on the Ybyrarobaná police station on May 3, 2025. A second weapon was used in 2020 by another criminal group in a clash with police in Laurel. Riera said the attackers withdrew on foot in military formation, and that the EPP has allied itself with drug traffickers.
The finding revises the initial police assessment, which favoured an organized-crime motive and found insufficient evidence to implicate the EPP. The investigation remains open.
The EPP emerged in 2008 from an armed network linked to the left-wing Patria Libre movement. It presents itself as a Marxist revolutionary organization, but Paraguayan authorities classify it as a criminal group because of its kidnappings, extortion and armed attacks.
Authorities describe the EPP as weakened, and Riera said its area of activity is shifting into Canindeyú along the dry border with Brazil. If the joint-operation assessment holds, the attack would show remaining militants extending their reach through criminal networks.
