Shania Vanesa Ávila Mendoza
Age 275 Aug 2012
Sincelejo, Sucre (Colombia)
Shot
TDoR list ref: tgeu/5-Aug-2012/Shania Vanesa (Delimiro) Ávila Mendoza
Shania was shot in the head by a client.
In 2012, a total of 17 members of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender community in the Caribbean Region were victims of attacks on their lives, according to the Caribe Affirmative report. Shania Vanessa was with her co-workers at 3:30 in the morning of August 5, 2012 on 22nd Street and Carrera 17 in the center of Sincelejo. The trans woman was approached by a young man, no older than 20, who was traveling on a black motorcycle and asked her to accompany him to a motel to have sex. Hours later, Shania Vanessa was found dead in an abandoned spot in the capital Sucreña with a bullet in the head.
Days later, a companion of Shania Vanessa revealed to the group of trans that that same man the night before of the homicide had tried to kill her at the exit to Tolú. Another who knew both cases said later that a man with the same characteristics had beaten and raped her several weeks ago in that same sector.
On the night of the murder, the man on the motorbike who had gone for Shania Vanessa, came back for another girl claiming that the deceased had fallen asleep. At the same time a taxi driver arrived at the site and told the trans group that they had found a trans woman dead in the La Selva neighborhood wherupon the the man on the motorcycle left immediately.
A month later, the taxi driver was found dead by a firearm near a road to the Tolu Variants and the police captured his alleged murderer and who, for Shania Vanessa's classmates, is the same young man on the black motorcycle.
This is just one of the homicide cases perpetrated against the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community in the department of Sucre, according to the report "A greater visibility, greater risk" of the Caribbean Affirmative Corporation.
Note that tdor.info gives Shania's date of death as 4 Aug 2012 and her name as Tania.
TvT partner organisation Centro de Apoyo a las Identidades Trans: El Meridiano de Cordova.com 07.08.2012
