Two lesbians were murdered and their bodies were marked with hate messages.

Betzi Esmeralda Có Sagastume and Kelli Maritza Villagrán Recinos were found dead on April 23, tied to each other with adhesive tape.

April 25, 2019

By Pilar Salazar, from Guatemala

Illustration: Florencia Capella

[NEWS IN PROGRESS]

At kilometer 56 on the road to Jalapa, in the department of El Progreso in central Guatemala, two young lesbians, ages 18 and 26, were murdered, their bodies bearing hateful messages. Betzi Esmeralda Có Sagastume and Kelli Maritza Villagrán were found dead by neighbors on April 23, bound together with duct tape. They had their throats slit, according to information from the El Progreso Municipal Fire Department. The bodies were marked with the phrase " They died for being lesbians," a lesbophobic message, according to civil society organizations and the Human Rights Ombudsman's Office.

The PDH's departmental office in El Progreso opened an official investigation and will follow up on the case in accordance with the constitutional mandate.

According to Juan Có Más, Betzi's father, who spoke to a local journalist, his daughter had left at 3:00 PM on the 21st, leaving her children in his care; one 7 months old and the other 2 years old.

Carlos Romero Prieto, representative of the National Network for Sexual Diversity, which runs an “Observatory for Violent Deaths, ” told Presentes : “ This year we have documented 6 cases, and if the rate continues at the same pace, we will reach the same number as last year, which was 24 documented cases. We don't just analyze by year, but rather what we have recorded so far this year and what we have recorded this year.”

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Guatemala condemned the murder. In addition to condemning the act, the office demanded that the safety of LGBT+ people be guaranteed, as well as a life free from violence.

[READ ALSO: Young activist murdered and hate messages left on her body]

“We identified some important points, some patterns, some hot spots. For example, four people were murdered in Santo Tomás de Castilla, and of course here in Guatemala City there are red zones, like the area around the Red Cross, where the main cases of murders targeting trans women have occurred. There's a very strong line of investigation there. There's a pattern we're identifying, such as the way the bodies were treated. The case of the girls who were bound together is very strange because we had never documented a case like that before, and it coincides with the previous case in Huehuetenango where the young man (José Díaz) also had homophobic messages written on his body,” Romero Prieto added.

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