Category World News

Colombian presidential hopeful Miguel Uribe is “fighting for his life” after being shot during a campaign rally in the capital, Bogota.

The assault took place on Saturday in a park as the country gears up for next year’s presidential election. Uribe, a 39-year-old senator, was shot twice – in the head and the chest, according to Colombia’s Attorney General’s Office.

The suspect is a 15-year-old who is in custody.

Here is what to know about the incident and Uribe’s current status:

What happened at the rally?

Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, who is seeking to run in the 2026 presidential election, was shot from behind at a campaign rally about 5pm [22:00 GMT] at El Golfito Park in Bogota’s Fontibon district.

A video verified by The New York Times shows Uribe being shot in the middle of his speech. Images from the scene of the shooting showed Uribe slumped against the hood of a white car, smeared with blood, as a group of men tried to hold him and stop the bleeding.

According to local media reports, he was first stabilised at a nearby clinic before being airlifted to the Santa Fe Foundation hospital. The hospital confirmed he arrived about 8:30pm on Saturday [01:00 GMT Sunday].

A security guard managed to detain the suspected attacker, a minor who is believed to be 15 years old. National Police Director Carlos Fernando Triana said the suspect was injured and was receiving treatment.

Two others – a man and a woman – were also wounded. But no details were available regarding their identities.

What is Uribe’s health status now?

Uribe is stable but still in critical condition after emerging on Sunday from a “neurosurgical” and “peripheral vascular procedure”, according to the hospital.

He “overcame the first surgical procedure”, Bogota Mayor Carlos Fernando Galan told the media, adding that he had entered “the critical hours” of recovery.

“He fought the first battle and fought it well. He is fighting for his life,” Uribe’s wife was heard saying in an audio recording shared with the media.

Who is Miguel Uribe?

Uribe was elected as senator in 2022 under the conservative Democratic Centre party, founded by former President Alvaro Uribe, whom he is not related to.

The former president described the shooting as an attack against “a hope for the country”.

His maternal grandfather, Julio Cesar Turbay Ayala, served as president from 1978 to 1982. He is also the son of journalist Diana Turbay, who was kidnapped in 1990 by Pablo Escobar’s Medellin cartel. She died in a botched rescue operation by Colombian forces a few months later.

Uribe has held several public offices, including Bogota City Council member (2012–2015) and government secretary of Bogota (2016–2018). He also ran for the capital’s mayor in 2019 but lost that election.

Who attacked Uribe?

The Attorney General’s Office confirmed a 15-year-old boy was arrested at the scene with a “9mm Glock-type firearm”. Witnesses had also described seeing a young assailant open fire from behind Uribe before being subdued by bodyguards and civilians.

The suspect remains in custody with investigations under way to determine if there were any accomplices.

What was the motive behind the shooting?

No motive has been established, and authorities said there was no specific threat made against the politician before the incident.

But the country is home to several armed groups, powerful cartels and has a long history of political violence.

In the 1980s and 1990s, at least five presidential candidates were assassinated by drug cartels, paramilitaries or political opponents.

One such case was the assassination of Luis Carlos Galan in 1989. Galan was a leading presidential candidate known for his strong anticorruption stance and opposition to drug trafficking. He was widely expected to win the presidency the following year.

A 2016 agreement aimed to bring long-lasting peace to the country by disarming rebels from the left-wing Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

When is the next presidential election in Colombia?

Colombia’s next presidential election is scheduled for May, in which current leftist President Gustavo Petro is ineligible to run due to term limits. A run-off will be held if needed.

Uribe, who is a right-wing critic of Petro, announced his intention to run for president in March.

What are the reactions?

The attack drew strong reactions from both local and international leaders.

Petro pledged an investigation.

“What matters most today is that all Colombians focus with the energy of our hearts, with our will to live … on ensuring that Dr Miguel Uribe stays alive.”

In an earlier statement, Petro condemned the violence as “an attack not only against his person, but also against democracy, freedom of thought, and the legitimate exercise of politics in Colombia”.

“Respect life, that’s the red line. … My solidarity [is] with the Uribe family and the Turbay family. I don’t know how to ease their pain,” he posted on X.

Defence Minister Pedro Sanchez mobilised military and intelligence resources and announced a reward of 3 billion Colombian pesos ($730,000) for information about the shooting.

United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a statement saying the US condemns the attack “in the strongest possible terms” and considers it a “direct threat to democracy”. He also called on Petro to “dial back the inflammatory rhetoric” and protect officials.

Leaders across Latin America also condemned the attack.

In a two-day referendum that proposes to speed up the process for granting citizenship to foreigners who have been legally en route to Italy, millions of immigrants’ fates are in danger.

In order to improve job protection, the referendum also aims to reverse labor reforms.

Results are anticipated after polls close on Monday at 3 p.m. (13:00 GMT), which polling stations opened on Sunday at 7 a.m. (05:00 GMT).

The measures are intended to change citizenship laws to facilitate integration for second-generation Italians born in the country to non-European Union parents, with the support of opposition parties, labor unions, and social activists.

However, a turnout of more than 50% is necessary for a referendum to be legally binding, which could not result in sufficient voter turnout to be declared valid.

The citizenship issue has attracted a lot of attention in a country where concerns about the volume of immigration helped to bring the anti-immigration coalition under right-wing Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to power in late 2022. Under President Donald Trump, immigration has become a pressing issue, particularly in Western Europe and the United States.

What does the referendum suggest, and what does it mean for immigrants whose lives are hampered by the slow process of naturalization in the EU member state?

How many immigrants are awaiting citizenship in Italy, and what are the requirements?

Italians are asked if they support reducing the time to which a person can apply for Italian citizenship by naturalization from ten years to five.

According to an estimate from Idos, an Italian research center, the proposed change would allow nearly 1.5 million foreigners to become citizens right away. Nearly 300,000 minors who would become citizens if their parents did so would be included in that list.

If the vote is approved, about half of Italy’s 5.4 million foreigners might be eligible to apply for citizenship.

The vote comes as Meloni’s citizenship laws are tightened, making it difficult for permanent residents to obtain citizenship.

Immigrants from nations outside the EU can only apply for citizenship in Italy after ten years of unrestricted residence.

Additionally, lawful immigrants’ children are only allowed to apply for passports after turning 18 and after living there permanently since birth.

On the other hand, generous bloodline laws preserved ties with the diaspora and made it possible for people of Italian descent to become citizens, even if they were far away.

For instance, Italy granted citizenship to more than 98,300 people, primarily those who reside in Latin America, between 2016 and 2023, based on their claims to be of Italian ancestry.

Italians’ birthrate is rapidly declining, according to economists, who believe the country needs to entice more foreigners to boost its sluggish economy.

According to Francesco Galietti of the political risk firm Policy Sonar, Meloni was “assaulting” the tightening of such rules, but that she was also being pushed by businesses to open the borders of an older country to foreigners.

There are “cultural identity rhetoric” on the one hand, but there are “potential issues” with paying pensions and a workforce-relying manufacturing industry, Galietti said.

In light of the system of checks and balances created after Benito Mussolini’s fascist rule in the 1940s, Italy’s constitution allows citizens to revoke laws through referendums.

What additional recommendations did the referendum make?

Reversing a law passed by a centre-left government ten years ago, the referendum seeks to make it harder to fire employees and increase compensation for those who were laid off by small businesses.

One of the ballot’s questions addresses the urgent issue of workplace security, which restores contractor and subcontractor joint liability for workplace accidents.

The Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL) union claims that the referendum, which will have five questions, four on the labor market and one on citizenship, received more than 4.5 million signatures.

We want to change a culture that places the needs of business preceding those of workers, according to CGIL general secretary Maurizio Landini.

Who and why did the referendum gain support?

A coalition of a few marginal political parties, including More Europe, Possibile, Possibile, the Italian Socialist Party, the Italian Radicals, the Communist Refoundation Party, as well as a number of civil society organizations, supported the referendum.

The center-left Democratic Party, which is battling to get Italian citizenship laws more in line with EU-wide standards, also supports it.

According to research, having citizenship results in advantageous causal effects.

Immigrants who naturalize have lower unemployment rates, higher incomes, and lower levels of job oversea.

In contrast, lengthy naturalization waiting periods detract from these effects.

These findings support the notion that naturalization serves as a significant catalyst for integration as well as a reward.

Italians believe that citizenship speeds up the integration process in particular.

According to the most recent Eurobarometer on immigration, 87 percent of Italians consider citizenship to be a key factor in the successful integration of immigrants into Italy.

However, the reform won’t have an impact on the law many people find to be deeply unfair because children who were born in Italy to foreign parents can’t ask for nationality until they are 18 years old.

Does Prime Minister Meloni support the new citizenship laws?

To challenge Meloni’s right-wing coalition government, opposition left-wing and centrist parties, civil society organizations, and a leading trade union have tapped into labor rights and Italy’s demographic woes.

The left has widely criticized Meloni’s decision to go to the polls but not cast a ballot because it won’t help raise the necessary threshold to get the vote rigged.

The lack of public discussion on the measures has been denounced by activists and opposition parties, accusing the ruling centre-right coalition of trying to stifle interest in pressing issues that directly affect immigrants and workers.

A Demopolis Institute poll last month predicted turnout would be in the region of 31 to 39 percent of Italy’s roughly 50 million electors, which is far below the required threshold.

The vote was opposed by the right-wing leaders of the two governing coalition parties, Matteo Salvini of the League and Antonio Tajani of Forza Italia.

According to Salvini, Italy’s deputy prime minister, the referendum is “dangerous” and would “indiscriminately expand access to citizenship.”

What significance does the referendum have?

Supporters claim that this change will improve long-term resident social integration and bring Italy’s citizenship law into line with many other European nations.

Additionally, it would facilitate easier access to civil and political rights, including the right to vote, employment opportunities for public employees, and freedom of movement within the EU.

Italy is also dealing with one of the most severe demographic crises in Europe.

About a quarter of Italians are over 65 years old, while only 12 percent are 14 or younger. Some of these pressures might be eased by the referendum.

Prince, also known by his recording name Dellyswagz, heard about the choir through a friend who was a member when he first moved to Venice in 2017. He was a singer in Nigeria, and his friend told him it was a good community, that they could help him get settled. When he first arrived, they gave him clothes, helped him find work and provided him with legal assistance to begin the process of getting a visa.

He is now 38, soft-spoken, but when he sings, he sways with feeling, and belting the lyrics, his voice strains and nearly breaks. He dresses in blue-tinted sunglasses, a black leather newsboy cap and a full denim outfit. “Like a king,” he says, smiling.

Shortly after he was born, his parents split up, and his primary caregiver was his mother’s father, who he was very close to. When his grandfather died in 2011, Prince no longer had ties to the Lagos suburb where he grew up and in 2015 decided to cross the Sahara and the Mediterranean in search of a better life.

“Growing up a boy, your mom have to really pray a lot for you,” he explains. “Either you become a thug or a mafia.”

He lives in a shared apartment in Padua, 40km (25 miles) outside Venice, where he moved after losing his job in a factory and being evicted because he didn’t have his papers yet. His bedroom doubles as his recording studio, where on a cluttered desk with a large monitor, he is recording and producing Afrobeats songs for his first album.

In Nigeria, he was a professional dance teacher, by most accounts successful, yet he felt there was no future there. Friends and family had already left, including his father, who lived in the United Kingdom, yet he didn’t consider leaving until his uncle, who was living in Austria, called and suggested he make the trip with his uncle’s wife and three cousins. Prince gave away his speakers, clothes and sneakers to his students. Along with his family, he saved up thousands of dollars. He brought nothing with him and told his parents he’d already made up his mind.

“The journey was deadly,” he says with a serious expression. “My story comes with a lot of pain and loss.”

The first three weeks were spent on a large open-backed truck packed with dozens of people. They drove across the Sahara and slept on the sand each night. Some had to drink their own urine, he recounts, because they hadn’t brought enough water, and along the way, he saw bodies left in the sand. “I can’t count how many we buried,” he says without emotion, referring to the people who died on the journey. “We used sand to cover them up. There’s no details of a name or family to call.”

From Libya, he and his family members tried to cross the Mediterranean by boat eight times. The entire journey to Italy took him two years. Once, they were kidnapped by pirates when they were on a boat and released two months later after paying a ransom. Another time, he was held in a Libyan prison for four months. At one point, they ran out of money, and he worked as a security guard for seven months in a compound holding refugees and migrants.

Then, in October 2016, he and his family members tried to cross the Mediterranean again. They crowded onto a wooden boat with more than 200 passengers on board. In the middle of the night, water began to enter the boat, and it started to sink. As it capsized, people fell into the water. Prince jumped in to save his cousins. The sea was freezing, and everyone was shouting and screaming around him, and he remembers the dark water lit by stars. By the time he located his 14-year-old cousin Sandra, it was too late. She had drowned because she didn’t know how to swim.

He held her lifeless body floating on his chest with a life vest propped behind his neck for what he estimates was 25 hours before he and other survivors, including the rest of his family, were rescued by fishermen and brought back to Libya.

“I didn’t even know I was rescued because I was so tired,” he says. “My eyes were just seeing white. I wasn’t seeing any more because of the sea, the salt. I was so tired.” Prince and his family were never able to bury Sandra because he says her body was stolen by people smugglers.

In Libya, a fisherman from The Gambia taught him how to use a compass, and on his final voyage, he was the navigator, telling the boat captain in which direction to steer. Their boat was intercepted by a rescue boat off the coast of Lampedusa. “The journey is not something I would wish upon my worst enemy,” he says, shaking his head. The rest of his family, who had gone ahead separately, went to different parts of Italy and Austria.

Prince tried to live with his sister-in-law in Austria, but when the authorities threatened to deport him, he was brought back to Italy, where his asylum case was pending. His flight landed him in Venice. He doesn’t know why.

Life in Italy has been hard, he says. His father had warned him about living as an immigrant, telling him before he left, “It’s better to be a free man in your own country than a slave abroad.” Prince is starting to agree with him. When he was evicted from his apartment, he was homeless for seven months, sleeping on friends’ couches and in a garage.

For him, there’s nothing special to Venice. “All I do is go to work and come home, go to work, come home,” he says. If he could do it all again, he says, he would have stayed in Nigeria.

In a protest called by Italy’s main opposition parties, who accuse the right-wing government of being too silent, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators have marched through Rome’s capital city to protest the war in Gaza.

Protesters held a banner reading “Stop the massacre, stop complicity” at the start of the Saturday march!

A diverse crowd, including many children’s families, attended the protest.

Up to 300, 000 people turned out for the rally, according to organizers, to demand a firm position from the government on Gaza’s conflict.

Elly Schlein, the leader of Italy’s center-left Democratic Party, told reporters at the march that “this is an enormous popular response to the massacre of Palestinians and the crimes of]Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s government.

She referred to Giorgia Meloni, the prime minister, as “there is another Italy that doesn’t stay silent as the Meloni government does.”

The opposition recently pressured Meloni to publicly denounce Netanyahu’s attack in Gaza, but many observers found her to be too timid.

The Italian leader pleaded with Israel to immediately stop its military assault on Gaza earlier this week, claiming that civilian casualties should be protected by the increase in attacks.

Israel’s offensive and pressure to enter Gaza during a humanitarian crisis are receiving growing international acclaim.

Experts warn that many of Gaza’s two million residents are in high danger of famine because the area has been under Israeli control for almost three months.

In Los Angeles, a city with a sizable Latino population, federal agents have opened flashbangs and tear gas at angry crowds.

According to the Department for Homeland Security, “118 aliens, including five gang members,” were arrested as a result of immigration and customs enforcement (ICE) operations in Los Angeles this week.

The incident occurred on Saturday in the Paramount suburb where protesters gathered outside a alleged federal facility that the neighborhood mayor claimed was being used as a staging area by agents.

Intense crowds gathered in enraged areas of Los Angeles on Friday, masked and armed immigration agents carried out extensive workplace searches that lasted for hours.

Mayor of Los Angeles Karen Bass acknowledged that some people were experiencing “fear” as a result of the federal actions.

Everyone has the right to peaceful protest, but she said on X that she would like to make it clear that violence and destruction are unacceptable and that those responsible would be held accountable.

After the clashes on Friday, FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino claimed numerous arrests had been made.

“We’ll bring handcuffs, and you bring chaos.” He declared on X that law and order would prevail.