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At dawn on Friday, December 13, fishermen searching for bait found the body of Edith Antonia Román, a 17-year-old girl. Her body was in a ditch along the Pilcomayo River, in indigenous territory in the far northeast of Salta province, bordering Paraguay and Bolivia. Four people have been arrested.

Edith was from the Betania Community, but lived about seven kilometers away in San Anselmo with her sister to attend school. Her body was found in the La Gracia Mission Community, very close to the La Estrella Community, in the vast Rivadavia Department, more than 500 kilometers from the provincial capital. 

The news reached Edith's father, Chief Reinaldo Román, only at midday. In the midst of a storm, he arrived at the ditch at 2 p.m. and recognized his daughter. “We found her little body lying in a canal there, near the community, in water, naked, with bruises. They had dragged her and thrown her in that place, in that water-filled pit,” he recounted. 

On Sunday, after burying her daughter, she spoke with Presentes and gave more details about the state of her daughter's body, with visible signs of the violence she had suffered. 

Four arrested 

The autopsy determined that she died from drowning and that she had been sexually abused. “She presented with traumatic brain injury, multiple traumas to different parts of her body, and wounds consistent with sexual abuse. The cause of death was drowning,” reported the Public Prosecutor's Office of Salta. 

The prosecutor's office also reported that four people have been arrested: three adult men and a 15-year-old boy, all members of indigenous communities in the area. One of them had "injuries on different parts of his body, consistent with scratches," the prosecutor's office stated. Speaking to Radio Nacional, prosecutor Gonzalo Vega said that two of the accused are brothers.

Reinaldo Román has no doubt about the detainees' responsibility. He indicates that a fifth person is involved. The only witness, the cousin with whom Edith had gone out on the night of December 12, could not identify him because she had not met him before. 

Román told Presentes that he knows from his cousin, Mabel Segundo, 20, that they left at 8 p.m. on December 12. They met up with a group of young people, including those now detained, a fifth unidentified person, and the cousin's boyfriend. They were drinking alcohol and listening to music. At 4 a.m., the cousin and her boyfriend left. The young woman returned around 5 a.m. but didn't find anyone there and went home.

Rural settlements 

The communities mentioned in this account are located on the banks of the Pilcomayo River and along Provincial Route 54. They lie between Santa Victoria Este and Misión La Paz, the last small Argentine town before the international bridge that connects to Pozo Hondo, Paraguay. It is a rural area, with settlements scattered along the entire route. 

Reinaldo Román explained that his daughter, his cousin, the young men, and the teenager who were with them met about a kilometer from the road. “Everything leading up to her death happened there,” he asserted. He knows this, he said, because those who arrived at that spot before the storm could see the marks in the ground. “From there, they dragged her to the ditch where they dumped her.” By the time the Criminalistics team from the Prosecutor's Office arrived, around midnight between December 13th and 14th, these marks had been washed away by the rain. 

Alcohol, drugs and violence 

Román, like other local leaders, blames drug and alcohol use for this act of violence and others that have been occurring in the communities, which are permeated by the constant smuggling of prohibited substances. 

The diagnosis is shared by prosecutor Gonzalo Vega. “This is a situation that has been occurring in all communities lately, and not only in rural areas, but also in cities,” he stated. He explained that in “all the recent serious crimes,” “alcohol and drug use have always been involved.” “Violence is escalating, and this is a result of the consumption of these substances. Indeed, this is making the cases more serious and more violent,” he confirmed. 

Reinaldo Román said his daughter had been suffering episodes of violence, sometimes arriving home crying. In statements to other media outlets, he claimed she had been threatened to prevent her from reporting the abuse. 

In the conversation with Presentes, he indicated that together with the coordinator of the Lhaka Honhat Association of Aboriginal Communities, Cristina Pérez, they are organizing a meeting of chiefs in Santa Victoria Este to “talk about the issue of drinking, alcohol, drugs. All those things. Things like what happened to my daughter can no longer happen. I am going to demand justice,” he stated. 

Román highlighted in this regard the acts of violence that occurred last November in Alto La Sierra, a town located more than 70 kilometers southeast of Santa Victoria Este, where native inhabitants burned a house that was used for the sale of narcotics and where sexual abuse of minors was allegedly committed. 

Abel Mendoza, president of the Autonomous Union of Indigenous Communities of the Pilcomayo (UACOP), also told Presentes that they are organizing a protest to demand prevention policies. He, too, linked Edith's death to drug use. 

Structural and Creole violence

The chiefs point to the sale of ethyl alcohol and drugs at all hours, an activity for which they generally point to non-indigenous people, the so-called "creoles". 

“As community leaders, we are very concerned about this sale of prohibited substances,” Mendoza said. He told Presentes that he had met with community leaders in Tartagal, the city closest to the Salta Chaco region, and that he would return to that area tomorrow for another meeting with communities along National Route 86. Last week there was another meeting in La Puntana, the community closest to Bolivia. 

Santa Victoria Este is located on the tri-border area that Argentina shares with the Plurinational State of Bolivia and Paraguay. For some time now, indigenous communities have been warning about the increase in drug smuggling through the numerous border crossings, and the resulting rise in drug use among young people and even children in these communities. 

In Santa Victoria Este, “there is a huge amount of drugs,” to the point that the entire area is “no man’s land,” the local official asserted. He said that the drugs are smuggled in canoes and floated down the Pilcomayo River. “People cross as if nothing is wrong,” “there is no control whatsoever,” he insisted. 

Similarly, he pointed out that the only police outpost in Santa Victoria Este lacks its own vehicles, and that they have requested it be upgraded to a full-fledged police station and provided with more resources. In fact, in Edith Román's case, the police only arrived at the scene at 3 p.m. And the forensics team, which had to travel from the city of Orán, almost 300 kilometers away, arrived after midnight.  

“We are out in the open, suffering these abuses of drug trafficking,” Mendoza asserted. He recounted incidents of sexual violence that he attributed to the consumption of crack cocaine, marijuana, cocaine, and ethyl alcohol. Faced with this, “all they tell us is that there are no funds,” he criticized the provincial and national governments. 

He also criticized the Salta judiciary, saying it doesn't support them when they report drug and alcohol dealers. "We feel abandoned by the state. It makes you feel powerless and angry," he stated before mentioning, in this string of bad news, the repeal of Law 26160, which protected communities from evictions.