This Argentine Teen Was Murdered By Her Police Ex-Boyfriend Who She Reported 18 Times

People in Argentina are demanding justice after Úrsula Bahillo, an 18-year-old woman, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend who she had filed several complaints against previously.

Bahillo’s body was found with at least 15 stab wounds on her torso, neck and back on Monday Feb. 8 in Rojas, a rural area of Buenos Aires, according to the Argentine newspaper Página/12.

Her ex-boyfriend, 25-year-old Matías Ezequiel Martínez and a member of the Buenos Aires Police, was arrested near the crime scene for the murder shortly afterwards, CNN reported.

Bahillo’s mother said that her daughter had faced threats from Martínez for seven months, and Bahillo had sent her friends voice messages telling them she feared for her life as he had threatened to kill her, according to El Mundo.

Bahillo and her family had filed 18 complaints against Martínez for gender violence, including one just two days before she was killed, Anadolu Agency reported.

Martínez was also issued a restraining order in January but disobeyed it. He was made aware of the new case against him just hours before he killed her, according to Anadolu Agency.

“We did not have any support from anyone,” Bahillo’s mother told local TV station El Trece.

News of Bahillo’s death and the police’s failure to act has sparked widespread outrage in the country, with people holding protests against gender violence and to demand justice for Bahillo.

One woman is killed every 32 hours in Argentina, according to the Women’s Office of the Supreme Court of Justice, the UN reported in 2020, and there have already been 40 cases of femicide in Argentina in since the beginning of 2021, according to Amnesty International.