Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe Turbay shot at a rally in Bogotá.
Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in next year's presidential elections, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogotá on Saturday, officials say. His party, the conservative Democratic Centre, issued a statement calling the incident "an unacceptable act of violence".
The attack occurred in a park in the Fontibon neighbourhood when armed assailants shot him in the back, said the Democratic Centre party, the party of former president Alvaro Uribe (not related).
Images circulating on social media show Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood and held by several people. A medical statement from the Fundación Santa Fe hospital said the senator was admitted in critical condition and is undergoing a "neurosurgical and peripheral vascular procedure".
"Miguel is fighting for his life," his wife, María Claudia Tarazona, wrote on the senator's X account, asking Colombians to pray for him. The Attorney General's Office, which is investigating the attack, said the senator was shot twice in the attack, which also left two other people injured. According to the entity's statement, a 15-year-old teenager was arrested at the scene with a firearm.The Colombian government announced that it is offering a reward for the capture of all those responsible. "Respect life, that is the red line," wrote President Gustavo Petro in a message on his X account. Shortly after that post, Petro cancelled a planned trip to France "due to the seriousness of the events", according to a presidential statement.
Late Saturday night, after leading an extraordinary session of the Security Council, the first leftist president in Colombia's history promised "total transparency" in the investigation and to get to the intellectual authors of the attack. He also announced an investigation into possible lapses in the senator's security detail.
Uribe Turbay is the son of a journalist who was kidnapped and murdered in 1991 during one of the country' s most violent periods. Colombia will hold presidential elections on 31 May 2026, at the end of Petro's term. The senator announced his presidential candidacy in March.
The director of the National Police, General Carlos Triana, said that at the time of the attack, Uribe Turbay was accompanied by councillor Andrés Barrios and 20 other people. A minor who allegedly participated in the attack was captured at the scene and was being treated for a leg injury, he said.
Reactions were swift across Latin America. The president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, said that "there is no space or justification for violence in a democracy", while the president of Ecuador, Daniel Noboa, stated that "we condemn all forms of violence and intolerance". Both presidents offered their solidarity to the senator's family.
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Colombian presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe shot in Bogota
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Colombian soldiers fought guerrillas. Now they're fighting for Mexican cartels
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But once he arrived, he and the nine other Colombians he had traveled with were driven to an isolated encampment in Jalisco state. Their phones and passports were confiscated, and they were told they were now part of a cartel. Freddy said he was forced to participate in torture and killings. He said he would be killed if he did not oblige: 'It's either your life or the life of the person in front of you.' Two other Colombian fighters recently active in Mexico described being lured there with the promise of good-paying jobs, according to video footage reviewed by The Times. Upon arrival, they claimed, they were ferried to cartel hot spots, handed guns and told to fight — and warned that their families would be harmed if they deserted. 'They deceived me,' said one man who said he was pledged $3,000 monthly as a security guard, but who instead was made to work for the Jalisco New Generation Cartel for roughly $300 a month. He said he provided weapons training for about 100 cartel soldiers, many of whom were under 18 and there against their will. 'We were practically slaves,' he said. 'They tell you: 'Go fight, and whoever dies, dies.' They don't care about human life.' The other man, a former Colombian police officer, said he worked as a medic alongside other international mercenaries from Venezuela and Guatemala. He said he had seen several Colombians die on the battlefield. Mexican authorities have known for years that cartels are employing foreign fighters. A Mexican military intelligence report from 2021 said the head of an armed cell working under a cartel leader known as El Abuelo — The Grandfather — employed 26 Colombian 'guerrilleros' to fight rivals from the Jalisco cartel. The report, made public by the hacktivist group Guacamaya, said a drug lord from another group had hired 10 Colombians, paying them a weekly salary of around $600. Derek Maltz, who stepped down last month as head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, said Colombian fighters have an obvious appeal. In addition to providing combat-seasoned muscle, the mercenaries operate in the role of player-coach, helping young cartel foot soldiers learn the art of war, Maltz said. 'They are wanted for their expertise with the use of IEDs — these guys are experts in these types of techniques. They are training all the gangster sicarios,' Maltz said, using the Spanish term for hitmen. The group headed by El Abuelo — whose real name is Juan José Farías Álvarez — is based in the western state of Michoacán, which sprawls from heart of Mexico to the Pacific Coast. His gang was included on the Trump administration's list of cartels designated as foreign terrorist organizations earlier this year. The rebranding enables U.S. law enforcement to pursue harsher penalties, and could open the door to drone strikes or other U.S. military action in Mexico, a possibility Trump has repeatedly floated. Maltz said the U.S. has seen 'significant progress' from Mexico on security under Trump, but argued the presence of foreign fighters trained in bomb-making strengthens the case for U.S. intervention. 'If it comes down to it, the U.S. government should use all tools in the toolbox to neutralize them,' Maltz said. 'They need to feel pain like they've never felt before.' The Jalisco cartel, one of the most powerful criminal groups in Mexico, was also included in Trump's terror designation and is known to have strong Colombian connections. The Mexican military recently released photos that indicate that some Colombians working for the cartels have fought in wars the world over. One showed camouflage fatigues worn by a Colombian fighter festooned with patches that include the flag of Ukraine. Another showed a military-style beret with a logo referring to a Jalisco commander nicknamed 'El Yogurt,' reputed to lead an armed cell that includes Colombians. A narcocorrido ballad dedicated to El Yogurt boasts of his skills cooking methamphetamine ('In the kitchen, not a rival has been found…') and notes that he 'has a support team, his friends never leave him behind.' Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said last week that her country is in talks with Colombia about how to stop the flow of mercenaries. 'This is not the first time that people of this nationality have been arrested,' she said Thursday after the arrests of the 11 Colombians. The issue is a sensitive one in Colombia, where the participation of Colombians in high-profile crimes has been the source of national shame. President Petro is pushing a bill that would require Colombia to sign on to a United Nations convention against the recruitment, financing and training of mercenaries. Some veterans say it is discriminatory. Ricardo Rodríguez, who worked as a security contractor in the United Arab Emirates after leaving the Colombian military, said in an interview that veterans should be able to take their skills elsewhere. What former soldiers need, he said, is more support from the Colombian government. 'They're stuck. They don't have any hope of getting ahead,' he said, adding that the nation's veterans will continue to look elsewhere for work 'until the Colombian government gives them the opportunity to improve their lives.' After eight months, Freddy escaped the cartel. Because he lacked identity documents, he traveled back to Colombia overland. He's back home now, but is out of work and in debt. He is plagued by nightmares about what he saw — and did — in Mexico. To toughen up young fighters, he said, cartel leaders forced them to eat barbecued human flesh. Still, he is looking again for opportunities to go abroad as a mercenary. Europe — and the salary he could make there — still calls to him. 'I don't have a career. I don't have any other skills,' he said. 'When you spend so many years at war, you don't have a vision of doing anything else. I like guns. I like security. This is what I was trained for.' Linthicum reported from Mexico City and Hamilton from San Francisco. Times staff writer Patrick J. McDonnell in Mexico City contributed to this report.
