Guadalupe Urban Ceballos, the councilwoman in charge of parks and gardens for the municipality of San Juan Cacahuatepec, on the coast of Oaxaca, has been murdered, the municipality confirmed on Thursday. Ceballos, a member of the Green Party of Mexico (PVEM), was ambushed as she left her home and shot. “We demand an immediate, thorough, and effective investigation from the competent authorities, bringing those responsible for this deplorable crime to justice,” the municipality where the official worked said in a statement.
Local media reported that the attack occurred around 11:00 a.m. as the councilwoman was leaving her home in San Antonio Ocotlán, a small town of 1,100 inhabitants near the border with the state of Guerrero. She was caught in a hail of bullets while driving to her workplace in San Juan Cacahuatepec, less than five miles away.
Both the Green Party (PVEM) and the San Juan Cacahuatepec City Council have condemned the crime and offered their condolences to Ceballos’s family. “This cowardly act represents a grave affront to the institutions and values that govern us as a society. We cannot allow violence to silence the voices of those who work for the common good,” the statement reads, describing the councilwoman as “a public servant committed to the causes of her community and to strengthening democratic life in our municipality.”
The Oaxaca State Attorney General’s Office has reported that it has launched an investigation into the crime. Authorities stated that they received a report of a body found on the highway connecting the two municipalities on Thursday morning. “Specialized and multidisciplinary personnel were dispatched to the scene to carry out forensic procedures, process the site, and conduct the initial investigations to clarify the case,” they explained in a statement. The State Women’s Secretariat has made a public request to the Attorney General’s Office that the investigations be carried out “under protocols and contextual analysis with a gender perspective.”
The councilwoman’s murder occurred the same week as the killing of Carlos Manzo, the mayor of Uruapan, Michoacán—a crime Ceballo had shared on her social media accounts just days before her death, as she had also shared the murder of Bernardo Bravo, the leader of the lemon growers’ union.
Source: elpais
