A Colombian senator running to be the country’s next president was shot and “critically” injured at a campaign rally in Bogota, authorities have said.
Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, 39, was targeted during the campaign event in a park in the Fontibon area of the Colombian capital, according to the Attorney General’s office.
He suffered two gunshot wounds and was seen covered in blood as he was being helped by aides and people in the crowd.
According to a medical report at the Santa Fe Foundation hospital, he was admitted there in a “critical condition” and is still undergoing a “neurosurgical and peripheral vascular procedure”.
Two other people were injured but the nature of their injuries has not been made public.
A 15-year-old male suspect was arrested at the scene and is being treated for a leg injury, police chief General Carlos Triana said.
Mr Uribe Turbay, who announced his presidential bid for the right-wing Democratic Center Party in March, was accompanied by a team of 21 people at the time of the shooting, his office said, including councilman Andres Barrios.
He was hoping to run in the presidential elections taking place on 31 May next year – and succeed President Gustavo Petro, the country’s first leftist leader.
His father, who was a journalist, was kidnapped and killed in 1991 during one of the most violent periods in Colombia’s history.
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His wife Maria Claudia Tarazone wrote on X that he is “fighting for his life” and urged Colombians to pray for him.
His party described it as an “unacceptable act of violence”, while US secretary of state Marco Rubio condemned it in the “strongest possible terms”.
Writing on X, Mr Rubio also urged Colombia’s current president to “dial back the inflammatory rhetoric and protect Colombian officials”.
Former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe, who is not related to Mr Uribe Turbay, said the gunman had “attacked the hope of the country, a great husband, son, brother, and a great colleague”.
He cancelled a planned trip to France due to the “seriousness of the events”, his office said in a statement, with law enforcement officials offering a reward to help prosecute the perpetrator.
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Messages of support poured in from elsewhere in Latin America, with Chilean President Gabriel Boric saying: “There is no room or justification for violence in a democracy,” and Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa adding: “We condemn all forms of violence and intolerance.”
