With the return of political violence, Colombia fears reliving the “nightmare” of the 1980s

Panic cries interrupted the speech of Miguel Uribe Turbay, a pre-candidate for the 2026 Colombian presidential election, just before he collapsed, riddled with bullets, in a pool of blood. This tragedy, which occurred on Saturday, June 7 in Bogota, recalls the darkest hours of the wave of political violence that raged in Colombia at the end of the last century. The shooter: a 14-year-old boy, whose identity remains confidential, “the last link in a complex criminal chain,” according to reports from El País América .

Hospitalized, the 39-year-old candidate, member of the Democratic Centre (hard right party), remains in critical condition, while vigils have been held across the country by his supporters. Although the authorities favor the theory that he was killed by drug trafficking groups or guerrillas refusing to lay down their weapons after more than half a century of conflict, they do not rule out that the assassination was aimed at destabilizing the left-wing government of Gustavo Petro .

Three days later, on Tuesday, June 10, Colombian authorities recorded around twenty attacks involving shootings in the departments of Valle del Cauca and Cauca, in the west of the country, probably linked to