Bogotá.- The presidential candidate and current senator of Colombia, Miguel Uribe Turbay -who was shot this Saturday in Bogotá– successfully underwent a first surgery after arriving in a “critical state” at a clinic, according to the city’s mayor, who reported this Sunday morning.
Miguel Uribe “successfully underwent the first surgical intervention,” said Carlos Fernando Galán, who assured that the senator entered “critical hours” of recovery to ensure his survival. The news was also confirmed by Christian Garcés, a member of the Colombian House of Representatives, who shared the words of María Claudia Tarazona, the 39-year-old right-wing leader’s wife: “‘Miguel made it out of surgery, he did it‘. Now a great effort in his recovery.”
Videos circulating on social media show the politician during a campaign speech in front of several people when gunshots are heard. In other images, he appears lying on a vehicle, with his body bloodied and held in the arms of a group of men. Paramedics who attended to him told the media that he received three gunshot wounds, two of them to the head and one to a knee.
The Santa Fe Foundation, the clinic to which he was transferred, reported that he underwent a “neurosurgical procedure” and “peripheral vascular”. The local media assure that at least one bullet hit between the senator’s neck and head.
For their part, the police maintain that the attackers –who were identified as two minors, one of them 15 years old– opened fire around 5:30 p.m. local time on Saturday during an event held in a working-class neighborhood in western Bogotá. A video obtained by the AFP agency shows Uribe speaking into a microphone in front of a tree minutes before the attack.
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The senator’s bodyguards reacted to the shots and a shootout occurred in which one person was reportedly injured. “Senator Miguel Uribe was… We were in a meeting and he was saying goodbye when a guy on a motorcycle arrived; the passenger got off, pulled out the gun and shot him three times at point-blank range, he shot him in the head, one in the chest,” a witness later recounted. “He was left lying there. They took him to a truck, but they couldn’t. Then the ambulance arrived and took him away,” he commented. For his part, the United States blamed the government of Gustavo Petro.
The suspect was captured by members of Uribe’s security team and is injured in a leg, according to the head of the institution told journalists. Two other people who were at the scene suffered “injuries”. At the moment the reasons for the attack are unknown.
