‘A whole spectrum of hatred’: women face increased violence in Milei’s Argentina as rights are eroded
In the week before her murder, Fernanda Soledad Yramain lay awake at night listening as a motorbike circled the house where she was hiding. “She kept saying ‘it’s him’,” remembers Daniella Viscarra, Soledad’s sister-in-law with whom she had sought refuge in the Tucumán countryside. “She was scared all of the time.”
A month earlier, in September 2024, 29-year-old Soledad had ended a relationship with her boyfriend, Francisco Timoteo Saldaño. They had been together since she was 14 and he was 35, and shared three children. In the final year of their relationship, Saldaño had turned violent.
“She started coming round with bruises on her arms, crying. He held a knife to her throat and said he would kill her,” says Sandra Yramain, Soledad’s aunt.
Together, Sandra and Soledad went to the police station to request protection. “They said that ‘these things take time’,” Sandra says. “But nobody ever called.”
Over the ensuing week, Soledad returned to the police station three more times. “She was certain he would kill her,” says Daniella. “So she kept trying.”
Less than a day after her fourth – and final – visit to beg the police to protect her, Saldaño stabbed Soledad to death with a butcher’s knife, before killing himself.
“Soledad did everything she was meant to do,” says Sandra. “But, because the police did not care, she was cut in half.”
