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Shocked and in tears, relatives on Friday laid to rest two women and a girl whose live-streamed torture and murder caused an outcry in Argentina, where activists are planning a weekend protest against femicide.<\/p>\n
The bodies of Morena Verdi and Brenda Del Castillo, cousins aged 20, and 15-year-old Lara Gutierrez were found buried Wednesday in the yard of a house in a southern suburb of Buenos Aires, five days after they went missing.<\/p>\n
The crime, which investigators have tied to narco activity, was perpetrated live on Instagram and watched by 45 members of a private account, officials said.<\/p>\n
Investigators said the victims, thinking they were going to a party, were lured into a van last Friday night, allegedly as part of a plan to “punish” them for violating a gang code, and as a warning to others.<\/p>\n
Police discovered the Instagram broadcast after one of four detainees — two men and two women — revealed it under questioning, according to Javier Alonso, security minister for Buenos Aires province.<\/p>\n
In the footage, a gang leader is heard saying: “This is what happens to those who steal drugs from me.”<\/p>\n
Argentine media are reporting the torturers cut off fingers, pulled out nails, beat and suffocated the victims.<\/p>\n
On Friday, dozens of people accompanied a mourning procession to a cemetery outside the capital where a private burial for Verdi and Del Castillo was held.<\/p>\n
Gutierrez was laid to rest in a different location.<\/p>\n
“I went to where the two little coffins were, side by side, and there I was able to cry more, and I promised them that I would find out who did this, because they destroyed the bodies, Antonio Del Castillo, grandfather of Brenda and Morena, told AFP.<\/p>\n
“Holding a wake for a family member with the coffin closed is very painful for me, very painful,” he added.<\/p>\n
– No bad victims –<\/p>\n
“They were with the wrong people at the wrong time, and that’s all. They had nothing to do with it,” Federico Celedon, Morena and Brenda’s cousin, told AFP.<\/p>\n
He said that Brenda had a one-year-old son who will now be cared for by his grandparents.<\/p>\n
Rights groups have called for demonstrations around the country Saturday under the banner: “There are no good or bad victims, only femicides,” in an apparent allusion to the victims’ reported involvement in sex work.<\/p>\n
Maria Eugenia Luduena, director of the Presentes rights NGO, told AFP the victims were youngsters with few options, coming as they did from a poor background.<\/p>\n
“We are talking about three very young women, one of them 15 years old, who, according to various reports, were summoned to an event related to sex work,” Luduena said.<\/p>\n
“The lack of work and the economic crisis we live in today affects women more,” allowing criminal networks to take advantage of them, she said.<\/p>\n
A lawyer for the youngest victim’s family, Gonzalo Fuenzalida, said they had received death threats and he will seek police protection.<\/p>\n
Dozens of political, cultural and social leaders have spoken out against the crime and called for an end to gender-based violence.<\/p>\n
A man nicknamed “Little J” or “Julito,” believed to be the head of the gang behind the murders, is on the run.<\/p>\n
mry-lm\/mlr\/ksb\/sla<\/p>\n<\/div>\n