Candidate Miguel Uribe is in critical condition after an attack during his campaign in Colombia.

BarcelonaA 15-year-old boy was arrested accused of shooting Miguel Uribe, a candidate in Colombia's presidential elections, twice in the head. Uribe, a senator and presidential candidate for the opposition Democratic Center party, was shot twice while participating in an election event. The man was taken to a Bogotá hospital in critical condition and was still "fighting for his life" on Sunday after undergoing emergency surgery, according to his wife and the hospital. The detained 15-year-old is believed to be the perpetrator of the attack, and the politician's own supporters held him until security forces arrived, offering a reward of 3 billion pesos (approximately 639,000 euros) to anyone with information about the attack.

At the time of the attack, Uribe was addressing his supporters from a platform. Shots were then heard, and he fell to the ground. In the images circulating online, he can be seen on the ground, unconscious with blood pouring from his head. The young man arrested was also injured, in this case by a gunshot to the leg. The attacker remains in a clinic in the capital.

The hospital where the senator is being treated reported this Sunday that Uribe's condition is "extremely serious" and his prognosis is "reserved." "Once the neurosurgical and left thigh procedures were completed, he was transferred to intensive care for postoperative stabilization," the Santa Fe Foundation of Bogotá explained in a statement. Subsequent studies concluded that the candidate suffered two gunshot wounds, one to the head and the other to the leg. The man was initially treated at the Medicentro Clinic, where he received first aid, and was then taken by ambulance to the Santa Fe Foundation, one of the most prestigious medical centers in the country. There, he underwent surgery that lasted four hours.

Miguel Uribe, 39, is the son of Diana Turbay, a journalist who died in 1991 during a rescue operation after being kidnapped by drug trafficker Pablo Escobar. His grandfather, Julio César Turbay, was president from 1978 to 1982. However, although they share a surname, he is not related to Álvaro Uribe, who was president of Colombia from 2002 to 2010. The current president, Gustavo Petro, appeared after local time to announce the opening of an official investigation. "This act of violence is an attack not only against the senator's physical integrity, but also against democracy and freedom of thought, and against the legitimate exercise of politics in Colombia," he said.

The Colombian Prosecutor's Office explained in a statement that the 15-year-old boy arrested was carrying "a Glock-type 9mm pistol," and Petro warned that the investigation was now focused on finding who had ordered the attack. "At the moment there are only hypotheses," Petro said, adding that lapses in security protocols would also be investigated. Uribe's wife, María Claudia Tarazona, wrote on her husband's X account that Uribe is "fighting for his life." Crowds gathered outside the Santa Fe Foundation hospital where Uribe was being treated, and held candlelight vigils and prayers overnight.

The Spanish government and neighboring Venezuela issued statements Sunday criticizing the attack. "The government of Spain strongly condemns the attempted assassination of Colombian senator and presidential candidate Miguel Uribe, to whom it expresses its solidarity and wishes a speedy recovery," the Spanish foreign ministry said on the social media platform X. U.S. Secretary of State Marcos Uribe said the "attempted assassination" of Uribe was possible but said the violence in Colombia was due to Petro's "inflammatory rhetoric."