The UN holds Paraguay responsible for the deaths of two girls in a military operation
A UN report holds Paraguay responsible for serious human rights violations in the deaths of girls Lilian Mariana and María Carmen Villalba, at the hands of the Joint Task Force five years ago.
Share
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child published a report on Wednesday, January 22, declaring Paraguay responsible for serious human rights violations in connection with the deaths of two 11-year-old girls, Lilian Mariana Villalba and María Carmen Villalba , which occurred during an operation by the Joint Task Force (FTC) in September 2020. The investigation into the case was led by Committee members Luis Ernesto Pedernera Reyna and Ann Marie Skelton.
The FTC is a special unit composed of military and police troops. It was created in 2013 during the government of Horacio Cartes with the mission of combating the Paraguayan People's Army, or EPP, an armed group with a presence in the departments of Concepción and San Pedro since 2008, which the Paraguayan government holds responsible for kidnappings and murders.
According to the UN Committee, the FTC directly caused the girls' deaths under circumstances that warranted investigation. "The State party failed to fulfill its duty to promptly, effectively, thoroughly, independently, impartially, and transparently investigate the girls' deaths," the document states.
Furthermore, they consider the State's failure to conduct a diligent investigation in accordance with the principles of international human rights law to be a serious violation. According to the UN, the State acted with gross negligence or deliberately concealed crucial aspects of the investigation.
What happened in Yby Yaú?
On September 2, 2020, the then-President of Paraguay, Mario Abdo Benítez, in a press conference and through his social media accounts, celebrated what he called a “successful operation” against EPP guerrillas at a ranch located in Yby Yaú, on the border of the Amambay and Concepción departments, in the north of the country. The victory he referred to was the killing of two 11-year-old girls, María Carmen and Lilian Villalba.
At that time, prosecutor Federico Delfino reported that the deceased were two women. “This operation was authorized by the courts on August 28, and we must address the deaths of two Paraguayan citizens who chose to confront the security forces rather than face justice,” he told Última Hora .
The girls' bodies were buried without autopsies, and their clothes were hastily burned on the day of their deaths. According to General Héctor Grau of the FTC (Joint Task Force), this was due to health protocols related to the COVID-19 pandemic, a point refuted by journalist Maximiliano Manzoni in this investigation . The official guidelines from the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare on the handling of corpses in cases of suspected or confirmed COVID-19 infection state that autopsies are not recommended but may be performed under specific circumstances.
The UN Committee concluded, based on its investigation, that the government misinformed the media from the outset. Initially, it claimed the victims were two Paraguayan women, and later that they were teenagers aged 15 and 18. Paraguayan authorities ordered their exhumation and autopsies on September 5, 2020, and were able to confirm that the girls were 11 years old at the time of their deaths.
According to an investigation by journalist Andrés Colmán, Lilian Mariana and María Carmen's parents are believed to be members of the EPP (Paraguayan People's Army), and the girls were born in secret in the north of the country. However, because the family members are fugitives from justice, they chose to have the girls live with their grandmother in Puerto Rico, Misiones, Argentina.
Information gathered by the international press indicates that María Carmen and Lilian Mariana were cousins and were registered as Argentine citizens in Clorinda in 2010. At the end of 2019, they crossed into Paraguay to meet their parents for the first time, but were unable to return to Argentina due to border closures caused by the pandemic. In a video released by the Misiones Human Rights Team, Mariana de Jesús Ayala de Villalba, the grandmother of the girls who died in Yby Yaú, confirmed that the girls were there because they wanted to meet their parents.
In this article , Korol explains that Laura Villalba is the mother of María Carmen, and Myriam Villalba is the mother of Lilian Mariana. The journalist maps the persecution the Villalba family has endured to this day, including Carmen Villalba, an imprisoned founder of the EPP and mother of Carmen Elisabeth Oviedo Villalba, “Lichita,” a 14-year-old girl who disappeared on November 30, 2020, in the same area.
Korol quotes a testimony from Myriam Villalba, Lilian Mariana's mother, where she explains that the UN resolution confirms what they have been denouncing from the beginning:
“Our girls were visiting Paraguay, they were in fifth grade in Puerto Rico, Misiones, Argentina, our girls are Argentine citizens and they were 11 years old. They were not at any time belligerent children, as Paraguay tried to justify capturing, torturing and executing Lilian and María Carmen,” Myriam Villalba stated.
On September 4, 2020, the Argentine Foreign Ministry confirmed that the deceased were Argentine citizens, born on October 29, 2008, and February 5, 2009. In this statement, they expressed their rejection of General Grau's remarks and urged the Paraguayan government to cooperate in clarifying the facts and identifying those responsible.
Following the exhumation of the girls' bodies, Pablo Lemir, a forensic doctor with the Public Prosecutor's Office, stated that their clothing could have been preserved in accordance with COVID-19 protocols. He also affirmed that the clothing could have been used to determine the distance from which the shots were fired.
They were girls
“They Were Just Girls” emerged as a rallying cry to unite the demand for truth and justice for the infanticide of María Carmen and Lilian Mariana, the safe return of Lichita, and the immediate release of Carmen Villalba. Chants like “We are not all here, Lichita is missing” and images of Lilian Mariana and María Carmen became ubiquitous at feminist marches and human rights demonstrations. The #TheyWereJustGirls campaign sought to denounce the negligence and the callous handling of the girls' deaths by the State.
The Human Rights Coordinator (Codehupy) published a statement in 2022 describing how, from the beginning of its operations, the performance of the Joint Task Force (FTC) in the northern zone of Paraguay was characterized by a series of irregularities and human rights violations against the most vulnerable populations .
“Children, adolescents, young people with disabilities, and the elderly, from rural and indigenous communities; as well as the actions riddled with irregularities and poorly aligned with the current legal framework by various justice system operators, both from the Public Prosecutor's Office and the Judiciary,” they stated three years ago.
Civil society organizations, such as the Coordinator for the Rights of Children and Adolescents of Paraguay (CDIA) , Amnesty International , and Codehupy, supported the UN Committee's statement. But five years after the girls' deaths at the hands of the Joint Task Force (FTC), those materially and ideologically responsible remain unpunished.
We are present
We are committed to journalism that delves into the territories and conducts thorough investigations, combined with new technologies and narrative formats. We want the protagonists, their stories, and their struggles to be present.
SUPPORT US
FOLLOW US
Related notes
We are present
This and other stories are not usually on the media agenda. Together we can bring them to light.