Colombian conservative Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay died on Monday, two months after he was shot by a child during a campaign rally in Bogotá.
The 39-year-old senator passed away hours after his condition worsened following a difficult two-month fight for his life at a Colombian healthcare center.
Uribe was a member of the conservative Democratic Center led by former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez (no relation) and was elected senator in 2022. Local polls released in July revealed that Sen. Uribe, who soft-launched his campaign in October, was the frontrunner presidential candidate for the 2026 election.
Senator Miguel Uribe was the grandson of former Colombian President Julio César Turbay. Uribe’s mother, Diana Turbay, was a journalist and daughter of the former president. She was killed in 1991 in a failed rescue attempt after late Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar ordered her kidnapping.
The late senator was a longtime critic of far-left President Gustavo Petro. Uribe had publicly condemned Petro as early as 2012, when he was elected as a Bogotá councillor at the age of 25 while Petro served as mayor of the Colombian capital. Sen. Uribe received the most votes of any senator in the 2022 elections.
On June 7, Uribe held a rally in Bogotá. During the event, a boy between the ages of 14 and 15 allegedly shot Uribe three times, inflicting two gunshot wounds to his skull and one to his left leg. Uribe was urgently transported to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Santa Fe Foundation of Bogotá, where he remained hospitalized fighting for his life until he passed away on Monday.
The Santa Fe Foundation announced on Saturday that Sen. Uribe’s condition worsened over the weekend due to an episode of bleeding in the central nervous system, which required new emergency neurosurgical procedures and a reinstatement of neuromuscular block and deep sedation treatments to aid his recovery. The Foundation informed local outlets that the senator passed away at 01:56 a.m. (local time) on Monday.
“You will always be the love of my life. Thank you for a life full of love, thank you for being a father to the girls, the best father to Alejandro,” Uribe’s wife María Claudia Tarazona wrote on Instagram. “I ask God to show me the way to learn to live without you.”
“Our love transcends this physical plane. Wait for me, because when I fulfill my promise to our children, I will come for you and we will have our second chance,” she continued. “Rest in peace, love of my life. I will take care of our children.”
“Deeply saddened to learn of Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe’s tragic death. The United States stands in solidarity with his family, the Colombian people, both in mourning and demanding justice for those responsible,” U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on social media.
President Gustavo Petro has not publicly commented on Senator Uribe’s death at press time.
Last week, the minor who shot Uribe pleaded guilty to attempted murder and illegal possession of weapons. Reports published in July indicated that investigators determined that members of the Marxist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) terrorist group were behind the assassination plot against Sen. Uribe.
According to the ongoing investigations, FARC commander José Aldinever “Zarco Aldinever” Sierra Sabogal is believed to have organized the attack on Uribe from within Venezuelan territory, enlisting local criminal gangs to carry out the plot. Last week, the FARC claimed in a public statement that Sierra Sabogal was “ambushed with explosives” and killed by the Marxist National Liberation Army (ELN) terrorist group in a “betrayal” of their mutual fight for a “new Colombia in peace.”
Hours before Sen. Uribe died, his wife, former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez, and other members of the Democratic Center party called for a rosary to be prayed for Uribe and for “the peace of Colombia” scheduled for Monday evening.
In late July, a Venezuelan 17-year-old turned himself in to Colombian authorities and claimed that he had information that could help in the ongoing investigation and was willing to collaborate. According to the minor’s testimony, he was originally contacted to shoot Uribe, but ultimately decided to distance himself from the plot. The Venezuelan minor reportedly “walked away” from a Colombian welfare center, which prompted the Office of the Inspector General of Colombia to launch an investigation to determine how and why the Venezuelan minor “escaped” from the facility.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
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