Colombian senator and presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay is “fighting for his life” after he was shot three times during a campaign event in Bogotá on Saturday.
The 39-year-old senator was attacked while addressing supporters in a park. Police arrested a 15-year-old suspect at the scene, according to local media.
Social media video verified by NBC News appeared to show the moment Uribe was shot in the head during his speech. Multiple gunshots could be heard as supporters ran, screaming in panic.
Paramedics said Uribe was shot in the knee and twice in the head, according to Agence France-Presse.
Another video showed three men cradling a bloodied and limp Uribe, before an ambulance arrived to the sound of wails and screams from the crowd. Another photo from the scene showed the hood of the white car Uribe was being held against streaked with blood.
A medical report from the Santa Fe Foundation hospital said the senator was admitted in critical condition and is undergoing a “neurosurgical and peripheral vascular procedure,” according to The Associated Press.
Uribe’s wife, posting on her husband’s X account, said he was fighting for his life and asked God to “guide the hands of the doctors who are treating him.”
“I ask everyone to join us in a chain of prayer for Miguel’s life,” she said.
Uribe’s Centro Democrático party called the attack “an unacceptable act of violence” in a statement.
Colombia’s president also issued a statement saying the government “categorically and forcefully” rejected the attack and called for a thorough investigation.
“We want, above all, to guarantee the state’s absolute transparency in its jurisdiction to investigate and track down the masterminds behind the attempted murder,” President Gustavo Petro said in a video address.
“Turbay is alive, and so all the activity today is primarily focused on keeping him alive,” he added.
In video captured by The Associated Press, Gen. Carlos Triana, director of Colombia’s National Police Force, said the minister of national defense had offered a reward of up to 3 billion pesos ($726,000) for “additional and complementary information.”
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he condemned “the attempted assassination,” calling the attack a “direct threat to democracy” in a post on X late Saturday.
He also blamed the attack on “violent leftist rhetoric coming from the highest levels of the Colombian government,” without providing examples.
The suspect’s motive is currently unknown.
Uribe, a right-wing critic of Petro and a senator since 2022, announced his candidacy for next year’s presidential election in October.
His mother, the journalist Diana Turbay, was killed in 1991 during a botched rescue operation after she was kidnapped by Pablo Escobar’s Medellín cartel.
Freddie Clayton
Freddie Clayton is a freelance journalist based in London.
Matteo Moschella is a London-based reporter for NBC News’ Social Newsgathering team.
The Associated Press
contributed
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