Colombia, in the full swing of a turbulent presidential campaign season, was shaken this past week when Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a prominent right-wing politician and candidate for president, was shot in the head on Saturday. Uribe was out campaigning in the capital city of Bogotá when a gunman opened fire from the crowd, hitting him twice in the head and once in the leg. Videos of the chaos following the shooting quickly went viral on social media: the senator’s supporters desperately pressing shirts to the side of his head in an attempt to stem the bleeding, the gore smearing the hood of a nearby car. 

Amazingly, Uribe was not immediately killed, and was rushed to surgery at a nearby hospital in Bogotá. He remains, at time of writing, in critical condition, hovering between life and death.

The would-be assassin, captured at the scene after a brief shoot-out with pursuing law enforcement, was a young hired killer just 14 years old—not an uncommon sight in Latin America, where cartels and other criminal organizations often employ such sicarios as cheap and disposable agents. The shooter was the least important member of a significant conspiracy that planned and executed the assassination attempt against Uribe; police have identified no fewer than five other participants who surveilled the location and helped plan the attack, and even provided the weapon used to shoot Uribe.

Attempts to identify and locate the rest of the conspirators, as well as their contacts or superiors, have thus far been (at least from what has been released to the public) to no avail, so the exact motive for the shooting remains unknown. However, it would be far from surprising if it is eventually discovered to be an operation conducted by one of the cartels or revolutionary movements Colombia hosts in abundance.