A woman’s rights activist who had been missing since last week in El Salvador was found dead in a sugarcane field with signs of having been murdered, an NGO reported on Thursday.
“Rosa Elvira Flores, a leader reported missing on Tuesday, March 19, 2024, was found lifeless,” reported the Salvadoran Women’s Movement (MSM), to which she belonged, on the X network.
The body of the 47-year-old activist was found on Wednesday in a sugarcane field in the Los Lagartos canton, in the municipality of San Julián, about 60 km west of the Salvadoran capital, explained the MSM.
“We are demanding that the culprits be found and justice be served, that the full weight of the law falls” on those responsible for Martínez’s death, said the director of the MSM, Ana Isabel López, in an email.
The MSM and family members had reported her disappearance to the prosecutor’s office, but the authorities have not yet provided an official version of the case.
The MSM was created in 1988 to assist women who suffered repression by the military forces during the bloody Salvadoran civil war (1980-1992), according to its website.
After the end of the conflict, the group dedicated itself to promoting women’s rights and fighting against gender-based violence.
El Salvador has been under a state of emergency for two years, questioned by human rights organizations, as part of President Nayib Bukele’s strategy to end gang violence.
