Miguel Uribe shot in Bogota, critical condition after campaign attack

Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay is transported on an ambulance after being shot and wounded in Bogota on June 7. Photo / AFP

A prominent Colombian right-wing presidential candidate is in critical condition after being shot three times during a campaign event in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said.

Thirty-nine-year-old Senator Miguel Uribe was speaking to supporters in the capital when a gunman shot him twice in the head and once in the knee before being detained.

Images from the scene showed Uribe slumped against the hood of a white car, smeared with blood, as a group of men tried to hold him and stop the bleeding.

A security guard managed to detain the suspected attacker, a minor who is believed to be 15 years old.

Uribe was airlifted to the hospital in “critical condition” where he is undergoing a “neurosurgical” and “peripheral vascular procedure”, the Santa Fe Clinic in Bogota confirmed.

Uribe’s wife posted on his X account that “he is fighting for his life at this moment”.

Police director Carlos Fernando Triana said the suspect was injured in the affray and was receiving treatment.

Two others – a man and a woman – were also wounded, and a Glock-style firearm was seized.

“Our hearts are broken, Colombia hurts,” Carolina Gomez, a 41-year-old businesswoman, told AFP as she prayed with candles for Uribe’s health.

The motive for the attack is not yet publicly known, and Colombia’s Minister of Defence vowed that the military, police and intelligence services would deploy “all their capabilities” to find out what happened.

The minister, Pedro Sanchez, also announced a roughly US$725,000 ($1.2 million) reward for information about who was behind the shooting.

The attack was condemned across the political spectrum and from overseas, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling it “a direct threat to democracy”.

Rubio pointed blame at Colombia’s leftist President Gustavo Petro, claiming the attack was the “result of the violent leftist rhetoric coming from the highest levels of the Colombian government”.

“President Petro needs to dial back the inflammatory rhetoric and protect Colombian officials,” the top US diplomat said.

Petro “categorically and forcefully” condemned the attack.

“This act of violence is an attack not only against his person, but also against democracy, freedom of thought, and the legitimate exercise of politics in Colombia,” the presidency said in the statement.

Petro was due to address the nation late on Saturday evening.

Uribe, a strong critic of Petro, is a member of the Democratic Center party, which announced last October his intention to run in the 2026 presidential election.

Authorities said that there was no specific threat made against the politician before the incident. Like many public figures in Colombia, Uribe had close personal protection.

The country is home to several armed guerrilla groups, powerful cartels and has a long history of political violence.

Uribe is the son of Diana Turbay, a famed Colombian journalist who was killed after being kidnapped by Pablo Escobar’s Medellin Cartel.

One of his grandfathers was former Colombia President Julio Cesar Turbay, who led the country from 1978 to 1982.

Shot ‘from behind’

Supporters gathered outside the facility, lighting candles and clutching crucifixes as they prayed for his recovery.

Uribe’s party said in a statement Saturday that an “armed individual” had shot the senator from behind.

The party leader, former President Alvaro Uribe, described the shooting as an attack against “a hope for the country”.

Miguel Uribe – who is not related to Alvaro – has been a senator since 2022. He previously served as Bogota’s government secretary and city councillor.

He also ran for city mayor in 2019, but lost that election.

– Agence France-Presse