Watch: Colombian presidential candidate shot twice in the head
Credit: Social media
A Right-wing Colombian politician campaigning to become the country's next president is fighting for his life after being shot twice in the head and once in the leg.
Miguel Uribe, 39, was standing in a park and addressing supporters in the capital, Bogota, when a gunman opened fire.
He was in the middle of his address when he was shot in the head, with the sound of gunfire prompting supporters to flee in panic. Video footage showed Mr Uribe slumped against a white car, his clothes drenched in blood.
The suspected gunman – who is reported to be just 15 – was arrested by a security guard at the scene. He was allegedly armed with a 9mm Glock-type pistol.
Mr Uribe, a senator for the Democratic Centre party, was airlifted to hospital, where he had emergency brain surgery.
Maria Claudia Tarazona, his wife, appealed to Colombians to pray for his survival. 'Miguel is currently fighting for his life. Let us ask God to guide the hands of the doctors who are treating him,' she said.
The motive for the assassination attempt is not yet known. The authorities have offered a reward of three billion peso (£540,000) for information about who was behind it.
Mr Uribe, a staunch critic of Gustavo Petro, the Left-wing president of Colombia, announced last year that he intended to run in next year's presidential election.
His family has been touched by violence in the past.
His mother, a prominent journalist, was killed in 1991 during a rescue attempt after she was kidnapped by the Medellin cartel, run at the time by Pablo Escobar, the notorious drug lord.
Colombia has a long history of political violence and is home to armed guerrilla groups as well as drug-dealing cartels.
President Petro condemned the shooting as 'an attack not only against his person, but also against democracy, freedom of thought, and the legitimate exercise of politics in Colombia'.
Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, called the attack 'a direct threat to democracy'.
He blamed the attack, without providing examples, on 'the violent Leftist rhetoric coming from the highest levels of the Colombian government'.
'President Petro needs to dial back the inflammatory rhetoric and protect Colombian officials,' Mr Rubio said.
Mr Uribe, who has been a senator since 2022, is from a prominent political family in Colombia. One of his grandfathers was the country's president from 1978 to 1982.
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