BOGOTA, Colombia —Colombian senator and presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe Turbay, 39, was shot in the head at a Bogotá campaign event Saturday, in an attack that sent shockwaves through the country.
The politician's condition remains unclear after being shot by a 15-year-old sicario, or paid hitman, while delivering a speech to a small group of supporters in a park in the west of the capital.
Videos posted on social media show the politician bleeding beside a car before being rushed to a nearby hospital. His condition remains serious. Bogotá Mayor Carlos Fernando Galán told reporters Sunday that Uribe had undergone surgery and was now in "the critical hours" of recovery.
The incident is the first high-profile assassination attempt on a politician in decades, raising fears of a return to a bloody era of political violence in Colombia ahead of contentious elections scheduled for May 31 2026.
"At this moment, Miguel is fighting for his life. We ask God to guide the hands of the doctors treating him," wrote Uribe's wife, Maria Claudia Tarazona, on her husband's X account on Saturday night.
Uribe Turbay is a far-right politician considered to be controversial former president Álvaro Uribe's protege. The men are not related. He is a staunch critic of incumbent President Gustavo Petro and has campaigned promising greater security in Colombia.
It is unclear who ordered the attack, which happened at around 5pm in the Fontibón neighborhood of Bogotá, but the perpetrators "almost certainly hired hitmen," according to Elizabeth Dickinson, Senior Colombia Analyst at Crisis Group International.
Police apprehended the underage shooter shortly after he fled the scene.
"Whoever ordered this assassination… very clearly had the intention of throwing gas onto a fire, trying to be incendiary in an electoral context that is already deeply polarized," Dickinson told NPR.
The attack comes amid deepening political polarization between Petro – a leftist former-guerrilla – and an emboldened right-wing opposition, who blame the president for the country's deteriorating security situation.
"Evidently this [attack] shows an erosion of Colombia's security and political climate in the short term," Sergio Guzmán, Director at Colombia Risk Analysis, a security think tank, told NPR.
Vicky Dávila, the conservative frontrunner in the upcoming presidential election, said Petro was "the only one responsible" for the assassination attempt in an X post on Saturday.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio — who has previously dubbed President Petro "Gustavo Chávez" — also blamed the Colombian leader and his language.
"This is a direct threat to democracy and the result of the violent leftist rhetoric coming from the highest levels of the Colombian government," wrote Rubio in an X post last night.
But Petro joined voices across the political spectrum condemning the shooting.
"Colombia and its eternal violence… They kill the son and the mother. Respect life, that is the red line," said the president on X.
His comment referred to Uribe Turbay's mother, journalist Diana Turbay, who was kidnapped by Pablo Escobar's Medellin Cartel and killed during a botched rescue operation in 1991.
Saturday's attack has drawn comparisons to this period of political violence, with many observers comparing it to presidential candidate Luis Carlos Galán's assassination in 1989 during peak cartel violence.
"Essentially what we have tonight is a return to a very dark era of politics in Colombia when violence was used as a political tool at the highest level of elections," said Dickinson.
Several presidential hopefuls have also called for greater protection for candidates ahead of the upcoming elections.
"Today I ask the international community to make an urgent and effective plan to take care of Colombia's presidential candidates and our families," wrote Vicky Dávila, in a post on X in the hours after the attack.
The Ministry of Defense offered a COP $3 billion (roughly USD $728,000) reward for information relating to the assassination attempt.
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