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BOGOTA, Colombia (CNN) -- The Colombian defense minister said Sunday that a military raid that killed about two dozen Colombian rebels in Ecuadoran territory also killed a citizen of Ecuador.
The news came a day after President Rafael Correa of Ecuador said it would be an "extremely grave" development to learn of the "murder" of an Ecuadoran citizen by foreign troops.
"When it is confirmed, we will take appropriate action," the president said in a statement on his Web site.
Ecuador cut diplomatic relations with Colombia after Colombian soldiers and police bombed a site just inside Ecuadoran territory March 1. The attack killed the second-in-command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FA RC.
Colombia called it the most significant blow to the FA RC in more than 40 years of warfare.
The action prompted a diplomatic crisis as two of Colombia's neighbors -- Ecuador and Venezuela -- moved troops toward their borders with Colombia. Yet the three nations largely defused the crisis with an agreement condemning Colombia's raid and affirming that no country has the right to violate the territory of another.
Ecuador has not yet re-established diplomatic ties with Colombia, and tension has mounted in recent days as the family of an Ecuadoran citizen began to suspect that their son, Franklin Guillermo Visalia Molina, was one of the people killed in the raid.
The Colombian government initially identified that person's body as a FARC rebel, but Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos said Sunday that the body is actually that of an Ecuadoran citizen.
Molina's relatives could travel to Colombia on Monday to try to identify the body. E-mail to a friend 
CNN's Fernando Ramos contributed to this report.
All About Colombia • War and Conflict • Ecuador
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