Two clowns shot dead at Colombian circus

BOGOTA, Feb 21 (Reuters) Two clowns were shot and killed by an unidentified gunman during their performance at a traveling circus in the eastern Colombian town of Cucuta, police said today.

The gunman burst into the Circo del Sol de Cali on Monday night and shot the clowns in front of an audience of 20 to 50 people, local police chief Jose Humberto Henao told Reuters.

One of the clowns was killed instantly and the second died the next day in hospital.

''The killings had nothing to do with the show the victims were performing at the time of the incident,'' Henao said in a telephone interview. ''We are investigating the motive.'' With an entrance fee of under 50 U.S. cents, Circo del Sol de Cali attracts mostly poor Colombians. It pitched it tents in Cucuta, near the border with Venezuela, earlier this month.

''The clowns came out to give their show and then this guy came out shooting them,'' one audience member told local television. ''It was terrible.'' REUTERS PDS RN0053