Colombia presidential candidate Miguel Uribe dies of injuries after June shooting
'You will always be the love of my life. Thank you for a life full of love,' Maria Claudia Tarazona wrote on her Instagram account.
'Rest in peace, love of my life. I will take care of our children,' she added.
The legislator's condition had returned to critical after he suffered a new brain hemorrhage related to the assassination attempt, the clinic treating him said Saturday.
On June 7, during a rally in a working-class neighbourhood of the capital Bogota, the 39-year-old conservative candidate was shot three times, twice in the head.
01:39
Authorities have arrested six suspects linked to the attack, including a 15-year-old alleged to have carried out the shooting, and point to a dissident group of the defunct FARC guerrilla group as possible masterminds.
By mid-July, Uribe was showing signs of improvement and had entered neurorehabilitation after several surgeries.
Uribe leaves behind a young son and three teenage daughters of his wife, whom he had taken in as his own.
'Today is a sad day for the country,' Colombian Vice President Francia Marquez said Monday in a message on social media network X.
'Violence cannot continue to mark our destiny. Democracy is not built with bullets or blood, it is built with respect, with dialogue,' she added.
A member of the Democratic Center party of former right-wing President Alvaro Uribe, to whom he is not related, he announced in October his intention to run in the May 2026 presidential election to succeed left-wing President Gustavo Petro.
The attack revived fears of a return to the violence of the 1980s and 1990s in Colombia, when political murders and attacks were commonplace.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a frequent critic of the leftist Petro government, demanded justice on Monday following the announcement of Uribe's death.
'The United States stands in solidarity with his family, the Colombian people, both in mourning and demanding justice for those responsible,' Rubio wrote on X.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
France 24
2 days ago
- France 24
'Attack on Democrat-run cities: Trump takes DC crackdown to new level, flexing new-found authority'
08:54 11/08/2025 Colombian presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe dies 2 months after being shot during a rally Americas 11/08/2025 USA: Donald Trump announces the national guard will be deployed in Washington DC Americas 11/08/2025 Trump vows to evict homeless from Washington DC Americas 07/08/2025 'Highest tariffs since Great Depression': In 1930's, trade plummeted and global depression deepened Americas 07/08/2025 EU faces major export decline amid sluggish growth in key member states Americas 07/08/2025 US begins collecting Trump's new global tariffs Americas 05/08/2025 'Gloves are off: Intense redistricting and partisan warfare' ahead of 2026 US Midterm Elections Americas 05/08/2025 Brazil's Supreme Court orders house arrest for former President Bolsonaro Americas 05/08/2025 Trump threatens India with high tariffs over Russian oil Asia / Pacific
France 24
2 days ago
- France 24
No bread, no fuel, no dollars: how Bolivia went from boom to bust
Voters in Boliva are expected to punish the left, in power for two decades, for acute shortages of fuel, dollars and some staple foods, such as subsidized bread, in Sunday's presidential and parliamentary elections The marraqueta, which is subsidized by the state, is the baguette of Bolivia. But even the humble "battle bread," as it is nicknamed, is hard to come by these days in La Paz as the government runs out of the dollars it needs to import essentials such as fuel and wheat. Ligia Maldonado, 70, tried over a dozen street stalls for what she calls the "bread of the poor" but went home empty-handed. "This government offers no hope," she said disconsolately. On Sunday, Bolivians go the polls in the first round of presidential and parliamentary elections which could see a country that steadfastly voted left for a generation swing to the right. 'Anyone else is better' Opinion polls show voters poised to punish the ruling MAS party, which has been in power for 19 years, for socialist policies that, like in Venezuela, lifted millions out of poverty in the 2000s but are now blamed for leading the country to ruin. Carlos Tavera, a 70-year-old socialist activist, says the best-placed opposition candidate would get his vote, even if it meant backing a right-wing candidate. "Anyone else would be better than this," he said. As in parts of Venezuela, life for many in Bolivia has become a daily slog to find affordable subsidized goods. Long lines for fuel at petrol stations have become a defining image of Bolivia's worst economic crisis in a generation © AIZAR RALDES / AFP The lines at gas stations in La Paz at times extend for nearly up to a kilometer (0.6 miles). "This morning I came at 6:00 am, and at 11:00 am. I'm just getting in to fill up," Manuel Osinaga, a taxi driver, told AFP at a gas station in La Paz. Wheat, used to make flour for bread, is also becoming scarce, as is cooking oil and rice and medication. Wilson Paz, a 39-year-old self-employed man, said he was forced to buy expensive unsubsidized bread to feed his family of seven. "We can't wait for these elections to arrive in order to change this (economic) model, which has impoverished us so much," he added, without revealing how he would vote. In the heyday of former leftist president Evo Morales, in the 2010s, things were very different. Bolivia, which has Latin America's second-biggest natural gas deposits, was being talked up as one of the region's hottest economies, powered by a commodities boom. But years of falling gas output, caused by underinvestment in energy exploration, have caused the country to go from boom to bust. Gas exports only brought in $1.6 billion last year, down from a peak of $6.1 billion in 2013. Street protests Bolivians have repeatedly taken to the streets in recent months to protest the government's handling of the economic crisis © Rodrigo URZAGASTI / AFP The dollar has doubled in value against the local boliviano in less than a year, which is in turn fuelling annual inflation of 24.8 percent, the highest level since at least 2008. The shortages of basics have sent Bolivians repeatedly into the streets over the past year, in protest over outgoing President Luis Arce's handling of the crisis. Napoleon Pacheco, an economics professor at the state-run Universidad Mayor de San Andres, said the economic meltdown had erased gains in living standards made under MAS. "The little that had been gained in previous years has been lost because the economy has contracted," he told AFP. The official poverty rate is listed at 36-37 percent, but if rising inflation were accounted for, 44 percent of Bolivians would be considered poor, according to the Jubileo Foundation, a Bolivian think-tank. 'Blood, toil and tears' The government has sought to stabilize the economy by printing money -- a policy that the two election frontrunners, center-right multimillionaire Samuel Doria Medina and hard-right former president Jorge Quiroga have vowed to end. Doria Medina and Quiroga have also pledged to close loss-making public companies, and both they and leading left-wing candidate Andronico Rodriguez have vowed to cut fuel subsidies, among other austerity measures. On a walkabout in La Paz last week Quiroga told AFP that Bolivians could expect "radical change (to) regain 20 lost years" if he were elected. "I believe a period is coming, to quote Churchill, of blood, toil, and tears. We must buckle up," said Pacheco. © 2025 AFP
France 24
2 days ago
- France 24
Colombian presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe dies 2 months after being shot during a rally
A Colombian senator and presidential hopeful whose shooting at a political rally in June recalled some of the darkest chapters of the country's drug-fueled violence died Monday. The family of Miguel Uribe Turbay said the politician died at a hospital in the capital, Bogota. Uribe, 39, was shot three times, twice in the head, while giving a campaign speech in a park and had since remained in an intensive care unit in serious condition with episodes of slight improvement. Details by Patricio Peralta, FRANCE 24 Espanol journalist in Bogota.
