"Take care of uncle"the message that a girl left in a letter at her late mother’s grave

“Ma, I love you. Take care of uncle”; “Make him not yell at us and Don’t let it touch me or my sisters,” These are two of the phrases that a girl wrote in a letter, the same one that she left in the niche of her deceased mother, to whom she cried out for help so that they would no longer suffer mistreatment or abuse.

The letter would have been left in May, in the tomb of the cemetery in Cochabamba, just for Mother’s Day, date when one of the three daughters of the deceased, after visiting her, left a little book in which she told her that she missed her; but that, unfortunately, an uncle was committing abuse against her and her other two sisters, also minors.

He was a worker Cochabamba general cemetery who noticed the letter written by a girl. He was carrying out maintenance work so that in November, around Todos Santos, the mausoleums would be in optimal conditions; However, when he saw the little book made with pink cardboard and bond sheets that had writing on it with marker, it caught his attention when he saw that it was open.

When he began to read it, he was terrified and shocked and proceeded to alert the cemetery manager of the situation. The case was also reported to the Office of the Ombudsman for Children and Adolescents and the Cochabamba Police, who went to the scene to start investigations.

For the worker, who spoke with Cochabamba media, he pointed out that practically the request that the girl made to her mother was heard, since he managed to see the letter despite four months of being in the niche.

“For the All Saints festivitiesWe carried out maintenance and improvements on the blocks, in one of them he made sure I had the little letter and there There was a testimony from a girl who reveals that He suffers abuse from shouting, hitting and touching. That story scared me and I called my superiors. Her (the girl’s) request for help could be heard,” he said with relief.

The Gender Director of the Mayor’s Office of Cochabamba, Tatiana Herrera, indicated that the little girl’s mother had her birthday one day after the letter was found (October 1), one year after deathso they still consider the case somewhat inexplicable, while they investigate which uncle they refer to in the letter.

The three minors, ages 9, 11 and 17, were located and transferred to a reception center, While the environment in which they lived is investigated, they also seek to corroborate the testimony written in the letter and see what conditions they lived in after their mother’s death.

He explained that in his psychological approach, the minors showed signs of having suffered sexual abuse; but other more scientific evaluations will be carried out.

The alleged perpetrator, the uncle, was arrested, but since the victims were not clear in their complaint, he was again released.

Another of the situations that alert investigators The thing is that the girls’ mother, on her deathbed, asked her daughters not to stay with that guy. “We are investigating and seeing how the man ends up staying with the minors,” Herrera said.