A Cuban Mother Is Murdered by Her Husband of 30 Years

Damaris Rondón, 48, was a teacher at the Fladio Álvarez Galán School of Sports Initiation

Damaris Rondón was 48 years old / Facebook

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, July 11, 2024 — Damaris Rondón, mother of two children, died at home in a rural town on Isla de la Juventud, after being assaulted by her husband on June 22. The attack left irreversible damage that caused her death on June 29, reported the Observatory of the Cuban feminist magazine Alas Tensas. As has happened on other occasions, the news had been reported on social networks, but independent platforms had not yet confirmed it. The 48-year-old woman was a teacher at the Fladio Álvarez Galán School Sports Initiation School, on Isla de la Juventud.

The first reports said that Rondón’s husband, identified as Luis Yero, “waited for his two children to leave the house and struck his wife on the head with a bat.” After the attack, the man committed suicide.

The attack left her with irreversible damage, which caused her death on June 29

The same Facebook post pointed out that, after the attack, Rondón was rescued and taken to a hospital, where she remained alive for four days; however, “she died from the blow to her head.” The couple had been married for 30 years, and although they lived in Isla de la Juventud with their children, they were natives of El Sitio, in Manzanillo, Granma.

Alas Tensas also confirmed the femicide of Yunaisi Bruzón Almaguer, reported by 14ymedio on June 25. The 54-year-old woman was murdered in the town of El Llano, in Holguín, and hers was the sixth death due to gender violence perpetrated in Cuba last June, including the death of Rondón.

Posts on social networks by activists and people close to Bruzón related how she died after receiving multiple stab wounds, allegedly from an unknown person. He was later identified as Carlos Rodríguez Cruz, and he surrendered to the police the next day.

Alas Tensas’ report included, for “gender reasons,” the murder of a man on July 8, in the town of Suferry, in Ciego de Ávila, at the hands of his daughter’s former partner. The man, his sister and a neighbor were injured in the attack and hospitalized.

The observatory urged the authorities to investigate at least six cases of sexist violence to determine if they are femicides

With the confirmation of both femicides, 27 are now registered on the Island in 2024, according to the count of this media. In 2023, there were 87 murders due to gender violence counted by independent platforms and media.

Likewise, the observatory urged the authorities to investigate at least six cases of gender violence to determine if they are femicides: three in Havana, two in Santiago de Cuba and one in Villa Clara.

Last January, the regime recognized that more than 16,000 Cuban women and girls who live in a situation of violence and are at risk of being victims of femicide in their own homes. No specific steps to prevent these crimes have been announced to date.

Translated by Regina Anavy

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