MEXICO CITY, Sept 14 (Reuters) – Spain’s Minister of Foreign Affairs demanded justice after the violent death of a Spanish college student in a state neighboring Mexico City, a case that media reports said was a stabbing and local authorities are investigating as a femicide.
“We want to get to the bottom of this,” Foreign Affairs Minister Jose Manuel Albares told reporters during a visit to Andorra. Spanish authorities are in contact with the family of the young woman, who has been identified as Claudia Tacoronte.
Mexico has long struggled with high rates of gender-based killings, or femicides.
The University of Granada student was on an academic exchange program with the Autonomous University of Morelos State.
According to local Mexican media, which cited police sources, 21-year-old Tacoronte died from stab wounds. Tacoronte’s body was found late Saturday in the surroundings of the Casa de Cultura in the town of Cuautla, about 100 kilometers from Mexico City.
In a statement, the University of Granada said it condemned Tacoronte’s “murder”, while students and faculty there held a minute of silence.
Morelos State Prosecutor Fernando Blumenkron said the death was being investigated as a femicide and pledged to pursue every line of investigation to establish the motives behind the crime and identify the person responsible.
(Reporting by Aida Pelaez-Fernandez in Barcelona, Benjamin Mejias in Gdansk and Raul Cortes Fernandez in Mexico City; Editing by David Gregorio)
