Colombian President Petro says ‘escaped being killed’ in assassination plot

Gustavo Petro has been warning for months about an alleged plot by drug traffickers who want to target him.Published On 11 Feb 2026Colombian President Gustavo Petro says that he has escaped an assassination attempt while travelling by helicopter with his daughters, after warning for months about an alleged plot by drug traffickers who want to target him.Petro said on Tuesday that his helicopter was unable to land at a destination on Colombia’s Caribbean coast the previous day because of fears that unspecified people “were going to shoot”.Recommended Stories list of 4 itemslist 1 of 4Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,448list 2 of 4Jeffrey Epstein’s ‘one single cause’: Israellist 3 of 4Will Israel annex the occupied West Bank?list 4 of 4US family demands pro-Palestine protester’s release after hospitalisationend of list“Last night, I couldn’t land because I was informed that they were going to shoot at the helicopter I was travelling in with my daughters,” Petro said in a report carried by the public broadcaster Radio Nacional de Colombia.“They didn’t even turn on the lights where I was supposed to land,” he said.Speaking at a Council of Ministers meeting in Cordoba Department, a region in the north of the country where heavy rains and flooding have led to a humanitarian emergency, Petro said that he had been forced to drastically change his travel plans due to threats to his safety.“I’m trying to escape being killed. That’s why I couldn’t arrive on time last night, because I couldn’t land where I had said. This morning, I couldn’t land where I was supposed to either, because there was information that the helicopter was going to be shot at,” he said.Translation: President @petrogustavo reports a new assassination attempt against him.Petro said his helicopter headed out to open sea for several hours until his aircraft, with the support of the Colombian Navy, reached a different landing point and changes were made to his security plans and travel routes.“The head of state affirmed that these events keep him in a state of permanent alert, and linked them to other actions that, according to him, have been occurring since October of last year,” Radio Nacional de Colombia reported.