Colombian presidential candidate in Bogota

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The Colombian opposition Senator and the presidential candidate Miguel Urby in Bogota on Saturday evening, was shot in an attack that shocked a country with a long history of political violence.

Ourby Torbe, 39, was leaving a campaign event in the capital organized by the opposition Democratic Center party when he was “armed with the back”, according to a party statement.

One of the witnesses told the local newspaper El Tiempo that Aurby was saying goodbye to the audience when a man fired three shots, one of which hit him in the head and the other in his chest. The mayor of Bogota, Carlos Galen, said that the gunman had been arrested.

The conservative politician, who was announced in October to run in the presidential elections for the next year, was transferred to a clinic in the capital, according to local media reports. The authorities have not yet commented on the case of Urby.

Videos on social media appear after the attack, a crowd of panic and screaming, and a bloodshed on his head and his return.

The office of Colombian President Gustavo Petro, the country’s first left -wing leader, issued a “categorical and powerful” statement condemning the attack, calling for an investigation.

“This act of violence is not just an attack against the personal security of the Senator, but also against democracy, freedom of thought and the practice of legitimate politics in Colombia,” the statement said.

The attack on Orepe sent shock waves across Colombia, a country that has participated for decades in low -level internal conflict with the armies of the leftist guerrilla warfare, the right -wing newlyweds who have ended now and their successors, and organized crime groups.

Political violence was in its worst cases in the 1990s, when three presidential candidates were killed during the 1990 campaign. In 1991, the mother of Uriani, Diana Turai, was killed in a rescue operation after her kidnapping by the drug card in Pablo Escobar. He is the grandson of former President Julio Cesar Turay.

Despite the ongoing struggle throughout the rural Columbia, the major cities have become significantly safer in this century, and many believed that violence in the upper layer of Colombian policy was transferred to the past.

However, about 48 hours before he was shot, Urby warned of the rise in violence. “They are dragging us to a violent past,” he said at a banking conference on Thursday. “Without security, there is nothing.”

The horrific attack on Urby comes amid increasing political tensions in Colombia. Petro launched oral attacks against opposition politicians – including Urby – for preventing his reform agenda, while claiming that the mysterious elites are trying to carry out a “soft coup” against his government.

The former Foreign Minister of Petro Alparo Leva called for the president to alleviate his speech in an open speech in April, where he also claimed that his former president was a drug addict.

Maria Jose Bizaro, a Senate member of the historic Pato Party, who was killed by his father, Carlos Pizaru, in 1990 while he was on the campaign’s path, called for a “urgent meeting” for political parties in Colombia to “agree on measures to defend democracy.”

“I am the daughter of a presidential candidate who was assassinated in 1990 and he should not return history itself,” Bizaro posted on X.