ADVISORY: The following includes details that are graphic and could be too much for some readers.
The bodies of a lesbian couple were found inside trash bags this week in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico. Nohemí Medina Martínez and Yulizsa Ramírez, both 28-years-old, had been tortured and dismembered and their remains were found 17 miles apart from one another according to the Daily Mail.
The married couple was from El Paso, Texas, a bordertown neighboring Ciudad Juárez notorious for crime and considered to be one of the most dangerous cities in the world where high rates of gruesome killings of women occur annually.
Martínez and Ramírez had been visiting family in Juárez and were last seen on Saturday, January 15. It is not known how long they were in Mexico. The couple were mothers to three children.
According to the Chihuahua Committee for Sexual Diversity, the murders are not being deemed a hate crime by authorities and the attorney general, but Chihuahua has the second highest numbers of hate crimes in the country and the committee implores authorities to consider them hate crimes and bring their slaying to justice.
Llama CONAPRED y @CONAVIM_MX a aplicar el Protocolo Nacional de Actuación para el Personal de Instancias de Procuración de Justicia del País, para esclarecer asesinato de dos mujeres lesbianas en Ciudad Juárez. #DiversidadSí#NadieAtrásNadieAfuera pic.twitter.com/VopMRUNlJN
— conapred (@CONAPRED) January 19, 2022
The rise in murders in Juárez is linked to the rise in drug violence that involves bloody turf wars over smuggling routes to the United States. In 2010, homicides peaked at 3,000 people in one year killed in the city. In 2021, over 1,400 were registered in Juárez.
Source: Daily Mail, Chihuahua Committee for Sexual Diversity
