By Maria Eugenia Ludueña. 2017 ended with another trans victim added to the list of trans and travesti deaths in Argentina. Carolina Angulo Paredes, 34, was shot in the chest in the early hours of December 29th while at a gas station in Florencio Varela. The investigation into her death is being handled by the Functional Instruction Unit (UFI) No. 3 of Berazategui, under the direction of Gabriela Mateo. For now, the case is classified as "aggravated homicide with the use of a firearm." This was reported to Presentes by the investigating judge, Diego Feustel, of the prosecutor's office No. 3. Her friends say that Carolina did not receive adequate or timely medical attention. Otrans Argentina reported that this is the fifth death of a transgender migrant woman in 2017. Friends of Carolina, who asked to remain anonymous, told this news outlet that on December 29, after 3:30 a.m., the victim was with other women on a corner at the intersection of Calchaquí Avenue and 15th Street in Florencio Varela, Buenos Aires Province. “She was working,” said one of her friends who, like Carolina, is excluded and discriminated against in the job market because of her gender identity and works as a sex worker. In Buenos Aires Province, there is a transgender employment quota law that was passed by the legislature in September 2015, but it has not been implemented for over two years. “The motorcycle approached Carolina, the guys said something to her. She replied to one of them: “I don’t know you.” He pulled out a gun, pointed it at her, and shot her in the chest. He stayed there for a few more minutes, pressuring the other girls and boys who were there. Her friends were very scared,” a friend recounted.

The colleagues reported a lack of attention.

“Carolina fell to one side, but she was conscious. She even sat up and lay down. She was begging for help. The police and an ambulance arrived, but she lay there without assistance for quite some time. The girls tried to help her. She died minutes before 8:00 a.m. at the Evita Hospital in Berazategui. If someone had taken her there immediately, she might have lived. The Shell station must have security cameras that recorded everything that happened.” In response to this complaint from her friends that Carolina did not receive prompt assistance, sources connected to the investigation say that the police arrived at the scene after a 911 call. According to witness statements, the ambulance took 25 minutes to arrive. She was taken to the Evita Hospital in a state of shock. X-rays indicated that no vital organs were affected, and the doctors believed she was out of danger. However, according to judicial sources, a CT scan later showed that the bullet was near a vital organ, and they decided to operate. Carolina died during the operation, shortly after 7 a.m. For now, sources connected to the case reported that it cannot be established whether the delay in the surgery was due to medical negligence.

"There is a transphobic and xenophobic component to Carolina's death."

Carolina was Peruvian. She had arrived in Argentina ten years earlier from the jungle of Yurimaguas, in the north of the country. “She was very loved by her comrades. She spent five years unjustly imprisoned on fabricated charges. She was detained in the Florencio Varela prison, where Damaris recently passed away. And she was getting the paperwork in order to travel to Peru to visit her family next month,” a friend said. Damaris Becerra Jurado was also Peruvian and an activist with Otrans Argentina, an organization that primarily represents transvestite and transgender migrants. She died in the early morning of November 26, 2017, in Penitentiary Unit No. 32 in Florencio Varela. Otrans has been denouncing arbitrary arrests and fabricated charges, which are followed by degrading treatment, lack of access to healthcare, and, ultimately, as in Damaris's case, death.

[READ MORE: Another trans woman dies in prison: she is the fourth in 2017 ]

Claudia Vasquez Haro, president of the organization Otrans Argentina, stated that “Carolina’s death has a deeply transphobic and xenophobic component, linked to racism. We are concerned not only as an organization but as a society. The State must take action. We see how discriminatory practices based on gender identity and sexual orientation have increased since this government took office.”

Fifth trans and migrant death of 2017

Otrans Argentina denounced that this is the fifth death of a trans migrant woman in 2017. The previous victims were Pamela Macedo Panduro, Angie Velázquez Ramírez, Brandy Bardales Sangama, and Damaris Becerra Jurado, all Peruvian, like Carolina, and activists with Otrans. “This death is part of a context of increasing institutional violence, deaths, and murders motivated by transphobia and hate crimes against trans and travesti identities in Argentina. Carolina, like so many other colleagues who are in prostitution, has been demanding the implementation of the trans employment quota law from Governor María Eugenia Vidal, and to this day we have received no response. We demand that the Judiciary investigate the death of our colleague and that justice be served. Enough with travesticide, enough with discrimination, and enough with transphobia and hate crimes,” Otrans stated in a press release.