The killing of a seven-year-old girl on the southern outskirts of Mexico City has stoked rising anger over the brutal slayings of women, including one found stabbed to death and skinned earlier this month.
The city prosecutor’s office on Monday said investigators identified a body found over the weekend as that of Fatima, an elementary-school student who was taken by a stranger on Tuesday last week.
By law, prosecutors do not give the full name of victims.
Photo: Reuters
Her body was found wrapped in a bag and abandoned in a rural area on Saturday and was identified by genetic testing. The cause of death has not been released.
Five people have been questioned in the case, and video footage of her abduction exists.
Mexico City Prosecutor Ernestina Godoy said that Fatima’s murder would not go unpunished.
The investigation is focused on identifying the woman seen walking away from the school with Fatima.
Guillermo Anton Godinez, the girl’s grandfather, on Monday said that his daughter arrived at the school 15 or 20 minutes after the woman led her away.
His granddaughter had left the school wearing her uniform, but the woman had put a green shirt and pants on her, he added.
His daughter was initially told that authorities could not begin searching for 72 hours after her disappearance, he said.
However, the prosecutors office said an amber alert was issued about Fatima’s disappearance the same day that relatives reported her missing.
Prosecutors’ spokesman Ulises Lara offered a US$100,000 reward for information on the person who picked her up when she left school.
Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum accompanied Fatima’s mother during the legal paperwork involved in filing charges and picking up her body.
“We are going to accompany the family, and justice must be done,” Sheinbaum said.
The girl’s mother, Maria Magdalena Anton, appeared angry and distraught outside the prosecutors’ offices.
“Justice has to be done, for my daughter and for all women,” she said.
Investigators made the family wait hours and travel across the city to even file a missing person report, she said.
Other relatives accused police of not acting quickly enough.
“She could have been found alive, but nobody paid attention to us,” said Sonia Lopez, Fatima’s aunt.
Lopez also said that there had been longstanding questions about the mother’s ability to care for her children, but that city health and family welfare agencies had not helped them.
Later, family and friends gathered for a wake at the family’s home to mourn Fatima.
Many relatives and commentators called for urgent changes to elementary-school safety protocols.
At government schools in urban areas of Mexico, children simply walk out on the street after classes end. Although their parents are often waiting outside, it is not the school’s responsibility to make sure someone is waiting to meet them.
The abduction and killing of the child came just two days after Ingrid Escamilla, a young Mexico City resident, was allegedly murdered by a boyfriend.
The man, who has been arrested, purportedly confessed to killing Escamilla with a knife, mutilating her body and flushing part of her corpse into the sewer.
Indignation grew after local media published horrific photographs of the skinned corpse, apparently leaked by city police officers.
Protesters read a statement on Friday saying: “It enrages us how Ingrid was killed, and how the media put her body on display.”
On Monday afternoon, the Mexican Ministry of the Interior said in a statement that media should not publish personal details or images of children in relation to a crime whether they are the authors, victims or witnesses.
The Mexican capital has seen a series of angry demonstrations over killings of women over the past few months, including several in which protesters have vandalized major monuments and buildings.
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