“He was cruel to her”: Songo La Maya in suspense after the brutal attack against a 17-year-old teenager

SONGO LA MAYA, Santiago de Cuba. – Rosale Estrada Bueno, 17 years old, was a victim of a brutal attack this Thursday afternoon when he returned to his home, located in the community of Los Ramos, in the Songo La Maya municipality, province of Santiago de Cuba. The aggressor, her ex-brother-in-law, was stalking her and, upon seeing her pass, he attacked her from behind with a knife, stabbing her at least 10 times, as confirmed by a source close to the family.

Despite the severity of her injuries, the young woman survived. She was initially transferred to the Carlos J. Finlay polyclinic in the town and then referred to the Sur Children’s Hospital, known as La Colonia, in the provincial capital, where she was operated on and continues to progress “well.”

As of the writing of this note, the motive for the attack has not been officially clarified. What is known is that the aggressor is a worker in the administrative area—a cashier, as confirmed by neighbors—of the same polyclinic to which the victim was taken after the attack, and that he was separated from Rosale’s sister.

“That man was angry with her, he wanted to kill her. Thank goodness the girl screamed and the neighbors came out. That’s why he ran away,” said a neighbor of the victim, who asked to remain anonymous.

The aggressor was captured this Thursday afternoon; However, during his transfer to the Police station in La Maya he managed to escape. Later, he was located and arrested again.

After the event, the General Directorate of Education of the municipality issued a brief statement in which he confirmed the attack, but avoided mentioning the details. The entity limits itself to pointing out that it is a student of the IPU Elvira Cape, from the Songo La Maya municipality, who was attacked during her transfer home by “an individual unrelated to the institution.”

“The DGEP strongly repudiates these acts of violence that are incompatible with our Education sector and the values ​​of humanism, civics and respect for life that govern Cuban society,” the official text states.

Although the institutional note indicates that the young woman was “stable,” close sources later confirmed that her condition is delicate.

On social networks, classmates, neighbors and people close to the victim expressed their outrage at the events. “It was not within the institution, but it has been too strong. In addition to the fact that he is young, the high level of aggression and fear in the streets of Cuba is reflected once again, regardless of the day or night,” wrote Adrián León Estalella.

“It doesn’t matter if it was inside or outside the school; the problem is that the murders and attempted murders continue and nothing happens. Thank God he is still alive,” commented Aleida Pérez.

The attack against Rosale also occurs in a context of growing violence in the municipality. Last day the 11th, this media reported about the murder of Hernán Casternaux Serrano, 31, in the same town. The young man was fatally shot in the head after trying to mediate a fight during a party. The attacker went to his house, looked for a shotgun and shot him at point-blank range.

Was it an attempted femicide?

With the data available as of the closing of this note, it is not possible to conclusively affirm that what happened to Rosale Estrada Bueno is an attempted feminicide, because there is no information about the motive for the attack or details about its possible gender bias.

At the same time, several elements described in the report—the extreme violence of the attack, the alleged homicidal intent and the family bond with the aggressor—fit with patterns that independent observatories of sexist violence in Cuba usually analyze when documenting feminicidal violence.

In its registration methodology, the magazine’s Gender Observatory Tense Wings (OGAT) and the feminist platform YoSíTeCreo in Cuba (YSTCC) they explain that, once the information is collected, they look for at least one element that allows this bias to be identified, “that is, at least one element that ensures that the cause of the violence is the fact that the victim is a woman,” and they point out that this criterion also applies to categories such as “attempted feminicide.”

In a reportthe OGAT describes that it can consider an event as an attempted femicide “due to the brutality of the aggression, the cruelty and the type of injuries that were described,” when explaining a documented case. In the attack against Rosale, the version collected by this means – multiple stab wounds in the back, stalking beforehand and escape – points to a lethal attack.

In the first two weeks of January, the OGAT YoSíTeCreo in Cuba confirmed two femicides. Since 2019, both platforms They have verified at least 300 sexist crimes on the Islanddespite operating in a context marked by the criminalization of feminist activism, limited access to institutional sources and the absence of a specific classification of feminicide in Cuban legislation.

While the authorities use expressions such as “murder for gender reasons” or “extreme gender violence”, independent groups insist on the need to name the problem as feminicide and demand the creation of public registration protocols and a comprehensive law against gender violence.

The Cuban State does not systematically publish annual statistics with detailed methodology nor does it offer disaggregated data with an intersectional approach accessible to citizens. This institutional opacity continues to be an obstacle to measuring the true magnitude of the phenomenon.