Colombian 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”.

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“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.

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Petro previously reported another alleged attempt on his life in 2024, and has claimed before that a drug-trafficking cartel has had its sights set on him as a target since he assumed office in August 2022.

The reported assassination plot comes amid a surge in violence, months ahead of presidential elections, in which Petro is constitutionally prevented from seeking a second term, and the kidnapping of a senator on Tuesday.

Senator Aida Quilcue, an Indigenous activist and human rights worker, was taken at around lunchtime by unknown people in her home department of Cauca, in the southwest of the country. Cauca is a conflict-ridden, coca-growing region controlled in large part by dissidents of the now-disbanded FARC rebel army.

Quilcue, 53, was kidnapped while travelling in an SUV with two bodyguards, according to her daughter, Alejandra Legarda.

Members of an Indigenous guard unit later found the vehicle, “but with no one inside”, Minister of National Defence Pedro Sanchez said on X.

Petro warned the kidnappers to release Quilcue or risk crossing “a red line”, according to reports. Shortly after, the defence minister said the senator and her bodyguards had been freed and were safe.

Images of the freed senator were shared widely on the Colombian military’s social media accounts.

Translation: Our commander, Brigadier General Javier Africano, along with @PoliciaColombia @GobCauca, @FiscaliaCol, welcomes Senator Aida Quilque to the facilities of the #TerceraDivisión after ensuring her return and safety. The operational deployment continues in the east of #Cauca, through the capabilities of our soldiers.

Last week, gunmen killed two bodyguards of a senator in an attack on his convoy in Colombia’s Arauca region, near Venezuela. He was not in the car at the time.

Last week, a Colombian observer group said more than 300 municipalities – a third of the national territory – are at risk of electoral violence, as legislative elections approach on March 8 and presidential elections on May 31.