Citizens marched in Juárez, Chihuahua, on Monday night to commemorate the death of an artist and women’s rights activist killed two years earlier.
Isabel Cabanillas de la Torre, 26, was murdered on January 17, 2020 after heading home from a bar in downtown Juárez on her bicycle.
Citizens walked with candles and cycled on Monday to the place Cabanillas was killed to pay their respects.
The single mother was an active member of a women’s collective. She was followed by a car and shot in front of a government building, where the CCTV cameras were inactive, the news website Border Report said.
Cabanillas’ mother, Reyna de la Torre, said police still had no suspects or motives, and that she would continue holding memorials for her daughter. “I will remember my daughter as a happy person who was leaving a happy place … I will do this [the memorial] year after year as long as God wills,” she said.
De la Torre added that the problem of violence appeared to have deteriorated further. “I think violence has increased a lot. Especially against women, with more cruelty than ever.”
More than 500 women have been murdered in Juárez in the past three years, with 172 in 2021.
Police have said most of those killings were drug related. However, activists claim that police tend to dismiss homicides as drug related to avoid investigating them.
On January 16, police found the mutilated bodies of two women on a highway near Juárez. A total of 10 women have been murdered in the city in the first 18 days of 2022, according to Border Report.
With reports from Border Report
