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Colombian Senator Miguel Uribay TurbayA possible candidate for the country’s presidential election next year was killed and injured during a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, the authorities announced.
His party in the Conservative Democrat Center published a statement qualifying him as “an act of unacceptable violence”.
The attack took place in a park in the Fonbon district when armed attackers fired it from behind, said the right -wing democratic center, which was former president Alvaro Uibe. Men are not linked.
Images circulating on social networks have shown Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood held by several people. A medical report from the Santa Fe Foundation Hospital said that the senator had been admitted to critical condition and suffered a “neurosurgical and peripheral vascular procedure”.
“Miguel is fighting for his life,” wrote his wife, María Claudia Tarazona, on the senator X account, urging Colombians to pray for him.
The Office of the Attorney General, who investigates the shooting, said that the senator had received two shot injuries in the attack, which had injured two others. The office statement said that a 15 -year -old boy was arrested on the scene with a firearm.
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The Colombian government said it offered a reward for the capture of all those responsible.
“Respect life, it’s the red line,” said President Gustavo Petro in a message published on his X account. Shortly after making the post, Petro canceled a planned trip in France “due to the gravity of the events,” according to a presidential statement.
Late Saturday evening, after having directed an extraordinary session of the Security Council, the first president on the left of Colombia promised a “complete transparency” in the investigation and to find the intellectual authors of the attack. He also promised an investigation into the failures of the senator’s bodyguards.
Uibe Turbay is the son of a journalist who was kidnapped and killed in 1991 during one of the most violent periods in the country. Colombia will hold a presidential election on May 31, 2026, marking the end of Petro’s mandate. The senator announced his presidential candidacy in March.
The Colombian police chief, General Carlos Triana, said that at the time of the attack, Uibe Turbay was accompanied by the city councilor Andrés Barrios and 20 other people. A minor who would have participated in the attack was apprehended on the scene and was treated for a leg injury, he said.
“I ordered Colombian soldiers and police forces and intelligence agencies to deploy all their capacities to urgently clarify the facts,” said Defense Minister Pedro Sánchez.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on X that “the United States condemns the assassination of Senator Miguel Uibe in the strongest terms.” He urged President Petro “to resume inflammatory rhetoric and to protect Colombian officials”.
“This is a direct threat to democracy and the result of violent left rhetoric from the highest levels of the Colombian government,” said Rubio.
The reactions flocked from Latin America, the Chilean President Gabriel Boric saying “there is no place or justification of violence in a democracy”, and the Ecuadorian president Daniel Noboa saying “we condemn all forms of violence and intolerance”. The two presidents offered solidarity to the senator’s family.
In Colombia, the former President Uibe said: “They attacked the country’s hope, a big husband, a father, a son, a brother, a great colleague.”
& Copy 2025 the Canadian press
