Thousands of people marched on Saturday in the capital to protest last week’s horrific triple murder in Florencio Varela that authorities have linked to drug-trafficking.
Demonstrators, led by the Ni Una Menos anti-gender violence collective and other associations, demanded justice for the three young victims whose brutal torture and killings were live-streamed on social media to a private group.
Relatives of the victims carried a banner bearing their names – “Lara, Brenda, Morena” – alongside placards with their images. “It was a narco-feminicide!” and “Our lives are not disposable!” read signs and banners carried by protesters, who chanted and beat drums as they rallied in Buenos Aires.
Demonstrations also took place in several other cities across Argentina, including Córdoba, Bariloche, Rosario, San Juan and Tucumán.
The bodies of cousins Morena Verdi and Brenda Del Castillo, both 20, and 15-year-old Lara Gutiérrez were found on Wednesday by police, buried in the yard of a house in Florencio Varela, a southern suburb of the capital, five days after they went missing.
They had last been seen on September 19.
According to investigators, the crime was carried out by drug gangs active in the Greater Buenos Aires region and broadcast live on Instagram to around 45 members in a closed group.
Political organisations, social groups and citizens joined Saturday’s march, which began in Plaza de Mayo and ended at Congress.
‘Bloodthirsty’
“Women must be protected more than ever,” Brenda’s father, Leonel Del Castillo, told reporters at the protest. He had earlier said he could not identify his daughter’s body because of the abuse she had endured.
Antonio Del Castillo, grandfather of the slain cousins, broke down in tears, branding the killers “bloodthirsty.”
“You wouldn’t do what they did to them to an animal,” he said. “I have hope that the truth will be revealed. I ask people to stand with us.”
He also told Canal Abierto: “Today it was our turn to have two children murdered. This time they took three lives, tomorrow they will take four, then five.”
Del Castillo continued: “This cannot go on. We will keep fighting. One day we will have a place where the kids can be educated, have decent work, and bring home a piece of bread. That is all I want to ask for now: justice.”
Rights campaigners have linked the killings to cutbacks affecting gender violence policies introduced by President Javier Milei’s government.
On Friday, National Security Minister Patricia Bullrich announced the arrest of a fifth suspect, bringing the total to three men and two women. The fifth suspect, accused of providing logistical support with a car, was detained in the Bolivian border city of Villazón.
Authorities have released a photograph of the alleged mastermind, 20-year-old Tony Janzen Valverde Victoriano, known as “Pequeño J,” who remains at large.
Police also reported “valuable information and new informants” had been obtained during two raids last Friday. The first took place in Florencio Varela, where investigators were searching for a man allegedly hired by traffickers to dig the pit where the girls’ bodies were buried.
A second raid was carried out in Isidro Casanova, near La Matanza, at a block of flats where “Pequeño J” once lived.
Prosecutor Adrián Arribas has requested an international arrest warrant for the alleged mastermind.
‘Punish’
Investigators say the victims, believing they were going to a party on September 19, were lured into a van as part of a plan to “punish” them for breaking gang codes and to send a warning to others. Local media have speculated the killings may have been triggered by a theft.
Police learned of the livestream video after one detainee disclosed it under questioning, according to Buenos Aires Province Security Minister Javier Alonso. In the footage, a gang leader is reportedly heard saying: “This is what happens to those who steal drugs from me.”
Local outlets reported the victims were tortured, with fingers cut off, nails pulled out, and subjected to beatings and suffocation.
The Times has not confirmed the veracity of the footage.
Meta, Instagram’s parent company, denied that the livestream took place on its platform. “We have not found any evidence of the livestream occurring on Instagram. Our team continues to cooperate with law enforcement as they investigate this horrific crime,” a spokesperson told AFP.
The three women, one of whom was the mother of a one-year-old baby, lived in an impoverished neighbourhood on the outskirts of the capital.
Federico Celebon, cousin of Brenda and Morena, told AFP the young women had sometimes engaged in sex work “to survive,” without their families’ knowledge. They had “bad luck” to “find themselves at the wrong time with the wrong people,” he said.
According to several media outlets, the women had been invited to the party as prostitutes.
‘False’
Yamila Alegre, a 35-year-old leatherworker who joined Saturday’s march, criticised media coverage of the case.
“We always try to make the girls feel guilty. We know everything about their lives, what they were doing there, what their family is like… we publish their photos but know nothing about the perpetrators – not their names, their faces are blurred,” she said.
Del Valle Galván, Lara’s aunt, rejected claims the 15-year-old was involved with drugs or prostitution.
“There is poverty in our neighbourhood, but what people say about Lara is false,” she said. “We want justice to be done, for nothing to be covered up, for the whole truth to come out so that those responsible can be held accountable. We are not afraid!”
At the rally, left-wing lawmaker Myriam Bregman said the “three femicides” were the result of unchecked drug-trafficking and the absence of authorities in impoverished areas.
“As soon as we heard about the triple femicide, we took to the streets, and this Saturday we marched en masse again. Women know that the only way to defend our rights is by fighting,” said the leader of the Frente de Izquierda y de los Trabajadores – Unidad (FIT–U) alliance.
“No-one can feign surprise that the narco business has grown on a large scale when legislation in our country has increasingly favoured money laundering,” she declared.
– TIMES/PERFIL/AFP
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