14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 17 January 2021 — Yosvany Villar Ávila, the 14-year-old boy who disappeared in Havana in December 2020, was found dead on Friday in La Loma de Chaple after the alleged murderer confessed, according to this newspaper’s sources. His mother, Airovis Ávila Pérez, confirmed the news to 14ymedio and added that this Monday she will go to legal medicine and will be able to take the body. There will be a wake for the boy and he will be cremated that same day in the Cuban capital.
A week after this newspaper reported the minor’s case, the authorities reactivated the case. On Thursday, Ávila explained, “Ariel’s family,” the neighbor she had named as a suspect in her son’s disappearance, was summoned to testify, after the discovery of the body. The 29-year-old man has been in 100 and Aldabó prison for several months awaiting trial for a similar matter.
“Yes, it was Ariel, we mothers made little mistakes,” the mother told 14ymedio . She insisted to officers from the beginning of the investigation that her son had been seen talking to that neighbor the day he was lost. Months later, when she learned that the man was in prison for allegedly attempting to rape a minor, her suspicions grew stronger. “I told the head of Attention to Minors from the first moment, but he told me that he could not suspect that man if there was no evidence,” she declared disappointed.
Ávila Pérez denounced in an interview with 14ymedio that her son had disappeared more than a year ago without the authorities having done, in her opinion, everything possible to find him. The delays and the lack of information on the development of the investigation were also among her complaints.
“Work is being done, but we have to wait,” the policemen repeated to the woman, without giving her any new information. Annoyed with the delays, she filed a complaint with the Office of Attention to Citizenship in the Plaza de la Revolución. But the answer she expected never came.
The first phase of the investigation barely lasted a week and, according to Ávila Pérez, when she asked Aguilera’s unit for an explanation and demanded that they continue the search, they told her that it had not been possible “because there was no fuel” for their vehicles. The minor’s mother returned home with the promise of the uniformed officers that they would call her when they resumed the investigations, but they never did. Now, her worst suspicions have been confirmed.
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