BOGOTÁ, Colombia – Colombian senator and 2026 presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe has died, two months after being critically wounded in a targeted attack during a campaign rally in the capital.
Uribe, 39, was shot three times — twice in the head and once in the leg — on June 7 while addressing supporters in a middle-class Bogotá neighbourhood.
His death was confirmed on Saturday by his wife, María Claudia Tarazona, who described him as “the love of my life” and “the best father” to their children.
The Santa Fe clinic, where Uribe had been receiving treatment, said he succumbed to complications from a bleed to his central nervous system despite multiple surgeries since the attack.
Police arrested a 15-year-old boy moments after the shooting as he tried to flee. The teenager, charged with attempted murder, has pleaded not guilty.
Several others have been detained on suspicion of aiding the gunman. Authorities have yet to establish a motive.
Uribe had served in the Senate since 2022 and was vying for his party’s presidential nomination for the 2026 election.
His political ambitions were shaped by personal tragedy — his mother, journalist Diana Turbay, was kidnapped in 1990 by the notorious criminal alliance Los Extraditables and killed during a botched rescue attempt five months later.
The brazen daylight shooting has revived memories of Colombia’s violent political past in the 1980s and 90s, when several presidential candidates and prominent public figures were assassinated amid drug cartel wars.
In the weeks following the attack, thousands of Colombians held vigils and rallies praying for Uribe’s recovery, underscoring the deep shock and anxiety over the country’s political security climate.
