Havana/The independent Alas Tensas observatory reported this Wednesday of a new feminicide. This is Yunia Lisset Bizet Sánchez, 52 years old, who was murdered in public by her ex-partner, in the Rosa La Bayamesa neighborhood, in Bayamo, Granma, on April 13.
The attack happened near a primary school, “and girls and boys witnessed it,” the organization said. In this regard, the communicator Niover Licea reported this Monday that the woman was intercepted on the street when she was on her way to a confrontation precisely due to previous conflicts with her ex-partner. According to witnesses, Bizet Sánchez “was riding in a pedicab, he stopped her and the attack began.” People tried to help, they threw stones at the aggressor, “but he didn’t stop… everything happened very quickly.”
The victim “died practically on the spot. The police arrived later, when nothing could be done,” according to testimonies.
Alas Tensas detailed that the woman had daughters – without specifying how many or what age – and thanked the people who tried to stop the attacker. He also pointed out that, “once again, it is evident that a system of injustice prevails in Cuba, since Yunia had denounced her attacker.”
I Yes I Believe in Cuba announced its closure this Wednesday
Another of the independent NGOs dedicated to counting the murders of women, Yo Sí Te Creo in Cuba, announced its closure also this Wednesday. In a post In his Facebook profile, he explained that “he does not have the human or material resources to continue maintaining the record of femicides, which becomes more difficult every day in the Cuban context. This type of observation represents an emotionally and mentally exhausting task, which in Cuba is multiplied by the repressive conditions of activism, the strong censorship and now the humanitarian crisis.”
The platform, which began in 2020, reported that it began “inevitably, with rudimentary verifications and without methodology,” but that, over six years, “it accumulated knowledge that comes from many people we want to recognize: first of all there are the independent observers, brave and anonymous women, who alone made the first verifications and records, some of which we treasure.”
He explained that “the methodology and the database that remains have been built by the collective effort of a network of observers, where the majority have been women, but we have had numerous committed men. Each piece of information, each call, were the grains of sand of the unique knowledge that we achieved about feminicidal violence in Cuba.”
The death of Bizet Sánchez is the fourth reported by the platforms since last Sunday
He also highlighted the role of the Cuban independent press, which, “with its resistance and pioneering work, addressed the first alerts and historical cases,” and which “maintains feminicidal violence on its daily agenda and as a topic of investigative journalism, despite being a very repressed sector of civil society.”
The death of Bizet Sánchez is the fourth reported by the platforms since last Sunday. That day he reported the cases of Maylen Fernandez Soriano26 years old, who was murdered by her partner in her home in the town of San Juan, in the Jesús Menéndez municipality, in Las Tunas. The crime occurred in the presence of the couple’s common son.
That same day, in the Las Maravillas community, in San Juan y Martínez, Pinar del Río, Yarisleidis Saavedra Hernández, also 26 years old, died. The young woman was trying to protect her mother from the aggression of her father, who later committed suicide. The cause of death was hypovolemic shock.
Last Monday, the NGO reported the death of the young woman Marian Pino Martínez23 years old, who was murdered by her ex-partner in her home in San Bernardo, Jagüey Grande, Matanzas, on April 10. According to Alas Tensas, the woman, mother of two girls, one four years old and the other months old, worked as an early childhood educator.
’14ymedio’ registers 13 deaths due to sexist violence on the Island so far this year
April has become the second month with the most murders of women due to sexist violence, with three cases. Until now, January accounts for practically half of the femicides in the year, with seven.
Although Alas Tensas has reported 17 deaths so far this year, most of them in partner crimes, some deaths have been recorded in different circumstances, such as that 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, which has led to 14ymedio to register 13 deaths due to sexist violence on the Island.
In the absence of official figures, independent media and organizations are those that have carried out this under-reporting in the country, although NGOs have warned that they face “increasing difficulties”, as warned Tense Wings last March.
