Colombia presidential hopeful dies after being shot in June

Senator Miguel Uribe looks on after the Senate voted against the government labor reform referendum promoted by Colombia's President Gustavo Petro in Bogota on May 14, 2025.   (Photo by Raul ARBOLEDA / AFP)

Colombian presidential candidate Miguel Uribe has died two months after being shot in the head at a campaign event, his wife announced early Monday morning.

"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 neighborhood of the capital Bogota, the 39-year-old conservative candidate was shot three times, twice in the head.

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.