For the second time in less than a week, Santiago de Cuba is the scene of a new femicide. The victim, the twenty-ninth so far in 2022, is Eudelvis Leyva Rivera, 19 years old and the mother of a girl only nine months old.
The body of the young woman was found near the Hermanos Díaz oil refinery, located at kilometer seven on the Mar Verde highway, in the province of Santiago. Under anonymity, a source close to the family explained to Cuban Journal that Rivera went out to look for sugar on Monday morning on her bicycle when she was attacked.
“She was raped, stabbed seven times and her throat cut. So far nothing is known about the perpetrator,” the source said. At the young woman’s wake there was a strong police presence, which included three patrol cars and a transport truck, but a neighbor explained that Rivera had a police relative and could be the reason for the deployment of the uniformed officers.
The user identified as Carlis Klein, who claims to be a friend of the victim, wrote in a group of Facebook that the incident occurred on a very lonely road with no houses around. “I get chills from this province with so many dangerous criminals,” he said.
Until mid-September, the independent organization Yo Sí Te Creo reported 26 femicides on the island and seven attempted violent deaths.
Last weekend it also came to light the death of Yadira Sueiro Pérez, 22 years old, who was attacked by her former partner with a machete in the town of Corralón, located in the Santiago municipality of Songo La Maya. Although the young woman was taken to an emergency medical care center, she died from the severity of her injuries.
In this case, the alleged murderer, identified as Osmel Morell Plutín, 24, looked for his father, a soldier, to be handed over to the police authorities.
Until mid-September, the organization Yo Sí Te Creo reported 26 femicides on the island and seven attempted violent deaths, but these statistics do not include the two femicides that occurred in Santiago de Cuba this week or the murder of Nodis Morales by her ex-husbandthe Cuban actor Jesús Rodríguez Vázquez, who later also hanged himself, perpetrated on October 3 last.
The most recent official data on gender-based violence dates from a 2016 survey, which revealed that 26.7% of Cuban women between the ages of 15 and 74 claimed to have suffered some type of violence in their relationship in the twelve months prior to the study and that only 3.7% of those attacked requested institutional help.
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