Colombia asks Mexico to probe ties with rebels

MEXICO CITY, March 14 (Reuters) - Colombia asked Mexico to investigate ties between Mexican citizens and the FARC guerrilla group after several Mexicans were found among the dead in a Colombian strike on a rebel camp.

Mexico's Foreign Ministry disclosed the request on Friday and said the government had opened a probe into whether the country harbors any FARC sympathizers.

"The Mexican government is worried that Mexican citizens might be involved with an organization like the FARC," the ministry said in a statement.

A Colombian military raid on a FARC guerrilla camp in Ecuador this month sparked the region's worst diplomatic crisis in years, with Venezuela and Ecuador sending troops to their borders with Colombia, their U.S.-backed neighbor.

At least four Mexicans died in the attack on the camp that killed some two dozen people including a top commander of the FARC, or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Another Mexican at the camp, university student Lucia Morett, survived the attack. She told reporters from her hospital bed that she was with several other Mexicans for an academic study and is not a member of the Marxist group.

Mexico condemned the attack as a violation of Ecuador's sovereignty, though it labels the FARC a criminal organization.

The incident has prompted Mexico to ask whether it is still home to a support network for Latin America's oldest rebel group, six years after authorities closed a FARC office at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, or UNAM.

FARC supporters of various nationalities opened an office at UNAM's Mexico City campus in the 1990s as a base to inform the world about the rebels' cause.

Washington and Bogota objected and Mexico shut it down in 2002. (Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Eric Walsh)