BOGOTA — Police Sergeant Luis Alberto Erazo was packing his tarp and towel at about 6 a.m. on Saturday — preparing for another long march through the jungle — when he felt gunshots graze his neck and face. Without thinking, he sprinted into the brush as his assassin gave chase.

Laying in a hospital bed in Bogotá on Monday, Erazo, 48, said that split-second decision allowed him to escape the FARC guerrillas who had held him hostage for almost 12 years. It was only when he was back in the capital that he was told his four companions — all of whom had been in rebel hands for more than a decade — didn’t survive. The FARC executed them as troops moved in, the government said.

“I thought they were also going to run toward the jungle,” Erazo said of his fellow hostages.

For years, his captors had drilled home the idea that if they heard gunshots they should stay close to camp or risk punishment. “My companions ran towards them [the guerrillas] and they were killed in cold blood,” Erazo said. “I forgot the rules and ran the other direction.”

In his first interviews since escaping, Erazo looked thin as he laid in a hospital bed wearing blue pajamas. His cheek and neck were bandaged and his face was covered in welts.

The death of the four hostages was a grim reminder that the embattled Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia or FARC still have the means to deliver powerful psychological blows to this Andean nation. The group is thought to have about 16 military and police officers still in captivity, many of whom, like Erazo, have been hostages for more than a decade.

Saturday’s incident sparked global outrage, as everyone from the Pope to Amnesty International condemned the murders. It was one of the first mass killing of captives since 2007, when 11 politicians from Valle de Cauca, who had been in captivity for five years, were executed.

Erazo’s escape came as the government is poised to reveal a new military strategy to step-up pressure on the group, and less than a month after special forces killed FARC top commander Alfonso Cano.

Erazo said news of Cano’s Nov. 4 death reached his camp but didn’t seem to phase the rebels.

“The guerrillas said that Alfonso Cano had died and that his replacement had been named; that one person went to his grave and another will lead the FARC,” he said. Their attitude is “this is war. Today I die, tomorrow you die.”

Rodrigo Londoño, also known as “Timoleón Jiménez” or “Timochenko” was named the new leader of the organization the day after Cano’s death.

Timochenko is thought to operate along the border with Venezuela, and military intelligence believes he often crosses into the neighboring country.

During a meeting between Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez and Colombian leader Juan Manuel Santos on Monday, Chávez said his nation’s forces would defend the border region.

“We will do everything within our reach to keep Venezuelan territory from being used to conspire against, strike at or attack Colombia,” he said, according to a statement issued by Colombia’s presidency. In the past, Colombia has accused Venezuela of turning a blind eye to FARC operations there.

When the news of the executions first broke on Saturday, there was speculation that it had been a botched rescue attempt.