The Mexican president met the parents of Debanhi Escobar on Friday May 13, the day after the publication of an independent expert report revealing that the young girl was raped and murdered, a new piece in this emblematic file of failures of justice in business of feminicides in Mexico.
Read alsoMexico: young Debanhi was murdered and sexually assaulted
“I spoke with them and I pledged to help to clarify what happened and so that there is no impunity“said Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador on the move to Monterrey (north). The case is generating unusual interest and outcry in Mexico, where a dozen women are killed every day according to official statistics.
“Signs of sexual violence”
Two weeks after his disappearance, the body of Debanhi, 18, was found on April 21, at the bottom of a cistern near a roadside motel on the outskirts of Monterrey. The corpse “showed signs of sexual violenceaccording to an autopsy report requested by the family. The young woman was the victim of ahomicide“, adds this report revealed by the Mexican online edition of the Spanish newspaper El Pais, which had access to the document. The expert speaks of “craniofacial bruises“caused by”a third person“.
The official autopsy did not give details on the causes of death, nor mentioned sexual violence. In front of the press, the Secretary of Security, Ricardo Mejia, mentioned “two expertise» and the need to «only one opinion“. Ricardo Mejia must also meet the girl’s parents. Debanhi’s father, Mario Escobar, has also called for the resignation of the prosecutor or his deputy if they prove to be behind the leak of the autopsy report in the media.
Read alsoCartels are spreading fear in the state of Zacatecas, in the heart of Mexico
In 2021 alone, 3,751 women were murdered in Mexico, including 1,004 cases considered femicide. All with near-total impunity: out of 1.7 million violent attacks against women recorded over the past eight years, only 781 trials for attempted femicide have taken place, according to figures revealed by an independent journalist, Gloria Pina, winner of the 2022 Breach-Valdez Prize for freedom of the press.