Family of fourth Malaga province victim of gender-based violence in July denounce VioGén protection removal

Gender-based violence

María's family, friends and neighbours gathered in Antequera on Wednesday, an official mourning day in the town

Irene Quirante

The Malaga town of Antequera has been in mourning since the discovery of the body of María: a mother of two, who was murdered by her ex-husband Antonio on Monday. After committing the crime, Antonio took his own life by jumping from the Arco de los Gigantes.

Despite their grief, María's family joined the gathering the town hall convened on Wednesday. They criticised the authorities for removing María's protection order from the VioGén system just days before the incident.

"How can they allow someone to be removed from the VioGén system? We can't understand why they would remove it or why they would let her withdraw it," one of María's cousins said on Wednesday.

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• • This has led María's close ones to suspect that she may have agreed to withdraw the complaint under duress from her ex-husband. Given the young woman's tragic end, her family are pleading with the authorities to establish a protocol in place to ensure that, in such cases, certain steps can guarantee that victims act of their own free will.

    According to her family's account, María celebrated Spain's World Cup victory with friends the night before the murder. Nobody had been in contact with her since then.

    "We talked maybe every day, every three days, but we didn't speak on Monday," María's cousin said.

    After learning that Antonio had taken his own life, María's friends and family began to worry about her.

    "Around 2pm, I heard the new about him. So, of course, this, along with the fact that my cousin wasn't answering her phone, put us a little on alert."

    Even so, they tried to remain calm because María sometimes took a while to answer the phone. "But there were already many of us who wanted to get in touch with her and she wasn't answering," her family said.

    "What's important right now isn't going into details about what happened, what María's life was like and what it wasn't like. On behalf of the family, we want María to not become just another statistic, for all necessary resources to be allocated, for there to be no cuts and for this to be a catalyst so that these things never happen again," the family stated.

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