Madrid/June closes as a black month in sexist violence in Cuba. Two women have been murdered in Sancti Spíritus in recent days, raising the record to 10 femicides. At the end of the first half of the year, the Island already has 32 deaths of women at the hands of their partners or ex-partners.
The most recent cases were confirmed by the observatory Tense Wings this Thursday. One of them is the murder of Zarahelga Pardo López, known as Sarita, 29 years old. The events occurred on June 29 in the Carlos Roloff Reparto, in the city of Sancti Spíritus. After carrying out the attack, her ex-partner and father of her children tried to take his own life and is, according to the observatory, hospitalized under police custody. The young woman had three children, all minors, for whom Alas Tensas requests specialized care.
The young woman had three children, all minors, for whom Alas Tensas requests specialized attention
The age of Lidianni Luis González, mother of two children and murdered by her ex-partner on June 21 on the Central Highway, near the town of La Trinchera, where she was heading from her place of residence in Guayos (Sancti Spíritus), is not known. The observatory warns that, in this case, it has emerged that the victim had previously reported her attacker. Details about this situation are unknown, although Alas Tensas describes the police action as negligent.
The observatory counts 37 femicides so far this year, five more than 14ymedio. The Alas Tensas count is higher because it includes in its list all violent crimes committed against women, such as the case of Yarisleidis Saavedra Hernández or that of Olimpia Pérez, a 79-year-old woman who was found dead in her home in Mayabeque, on March 2.
In addition, the organization adds 19 attempted feminicides in 2026 and investigates at least another dozen this year and 10 more in 2025, which it has not been able to confirm to date.
Violence against women has been very high this month, with three more deaths than those recorded in January, the worst to date. The most recent case was known on June 22, five days after the attack with “extreme violence” against Maribel Pérez Linares, 33 years old, and her partner. Both were murdered with a machete by the woman’s ex-partner, in Mayabeque, on June 17.
In most of the attacks confirmed by the observatory in the year, the same pattern of brutality, closeness of the aggressor to the victim and lack of institutional protection is shown.
In this regard, an analysis by typology of the femicides verified in 2025 by Alas Tensas shows that 83.3% of the murders recorded last year were carried out by the victims’ partner. “The persistence of gender violence in the area of emotional relationships is confirmed as the main risk scenario,” he indicates.
“The persistence of gender violence in the area of emotional relationships as the main risk scenario is confirmed”
Likewise, it states that “the marked concentration of femicides of partners and ex-partners indicates that the home and intimate relationships continue to be spaces of high vulnerability, in a context where unequal power relations persist and where institutional mechanisms of prevention, protection and care are insufficient or non-existent.”
Since 2019, the year the Alas Tensas Observatory was founded, more than 350 femicides have been recorded in Cuba. The year with the most cases was 2023, with 90.
By comparison, in Spain, one of the pioneering countries in legislation against gender violence, today there are 25 sexist murders, all of them certified by the authorities. They are, at best, seven less than in Cuba, where there are no official figures, for a country with a population five times larger.
