Colombian senator Miguel Uibe dies 2 months after being shot in the rally

Miguel Uibe, the Colombian senator who had been hospitalized since he was killed in June during a campaign event, died, his family announced on Monday. He was 39 years old.

Uibe, father and stepfather, was shot in the lead as he delivered a campaign speech in Bogota on June 7 and suffered several surgical interventions during his subsequent hospital stay.

He had shown an improvement in July, but his condition worsened last weekend due to a hemorrhage in his central nervous system, said the hospital that treats him on Sunday.

“You will always be the love of my life,” said his wife Maria Claudia Tarazona on Instagram on Monday. “Thank you for a life full of love, thank you for being a father to the girls, the best father of Alejandro.

“I ask God to show me the way to learn to live without you,” she added. “Rest in peace, love of my life, I will take care of our children.”

The assassination has aroused memories of intense political violence in the past of Colombia. In the 1980s and 1990s, four presidential candidates were murdered in distinct attacks blamed for drug cartels allied with right -wing paramilitary teams.

Uibe’s mother, journalist Diana Turbay, was killed in 1991 during a sloppy rescue mission after being kidnapped by Medellin Cartel, led by drugs Pablo Escobar.

Uiban’s family is important in Colombian politics. His maternal grandfather, Julio Cesar Turbay, was president of Colombia from 1978 to 1982, while his paternal grandfather, Rodrigo Uibe Echavarria, led the Liberal Party and supported the successful presidential campaign of Virgilio Barco in 1986.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio declared in an article on X that he was “deeply saddened” by death.

“The United States is united with its family, the Colombian people, both in mourning and demanding justice for those responsible,” said Rubio.

Critical of the current PM

Uibe had experienced a rapid political increase, becoming a legislator recognized for the party of the right -wing democratic center and the presidential hope known for his lively criticism of the administration of the left president Gustavo Petro.

At 25, he was elected to the Bogota municipal council, where he was an eminent opponent of Petro, then the mayor of the capital, criticizing Petro management of waste management and social programs.

In 2016, at 30, Uibe was appointed secretary of the city government, the youngest to hold the post.

He resigned from this position in 2018 to launch an unsuccessful offer for the mayor of Bogota as independent.

During the 2022 legislative elections, Uribe directed the Senate list for the Party of the Democratic Center, which is considered a right -wing party, with the slogan “Colombia first”.

In the Senate, Uibe has cemented his role of one of the main voices of the opposition to Petro, criticizing the government’s peace strategy aimed at putting an end to the armed conflict of the six decades of Colombia. Uibe said that the strategy had turned around because the government had interrupted offensives on armed groups as peace talks failed.

“Colombia needs leadership, unity and work. Peace cannot be imposed by impunity,” Uribe told his legislator colleagues in July 2024, the day of the opening of the legislative session. “Only a serious security policy will encourage criminals to lay down arms and submit to the law.

“Without security, there is nothing. Prosperity is affected by opportunities and opportunities with investments, but for there to be investments, there must be clear rules, incentives,” he added.

He was being chosen as presidential candidate of the Democratic Center during the 2026 elections.

Six people are arrested during the shooting, including two men who, according to the Office of the Attorney General, met in Medellin to plan the assassination.

A 15 -year -old accused of having done the shooting was arrested in the hours after the crime, but the police said that they were pursuing the “intellectual perpetrators” of the attack.

In a video of the boy’s June arrest, checked independently by Reuters, we can hear that he had been hired by a local drug trafficker.