Daniela Rodríguez
Age 2918 Feb 2017
San Luis Talpa, La Paz (El Salvador)
Shot
TDoR list ref: tgeu/18-Feb-2017/D. Rodriguez
Daniela and Yasuri Orellana were on their way to a party in the center of San Luis Talpa on 18th February 2017 when they were rammed by a car. Without saying a word the driver pulled out a firearm and shot them several times.
The article MS-13 Banished Trans Women From a Town and Murdered Those Who Stayed gives a heartbreaking insight into what happened:
MS-13's attack on the town’s trans women community began with a Valentine Day’s dance in the town square in 2017. Nube recalled in an interview with VICE World News that she wore a tight black tube dress for the Saturday night party and let her best friend Elizabeth Castillo do her hair and makeup.
The night of February 18, Nube and Elizabeth each had a drink of cheap alcohol and left for the central plaza. There, they waited in a corner for two other trans friends, Diana and Yasuri, to arrive. As the music played in the background, Nube grew restless. “If you want, stay here, but I'm going to dance," she said, describing the conversation four years ago. Elizabeth offered another drink to her friend and they began to dance.
Half an hour later, as Nube and Elizabeth were dancing, a burst of gunfire in the distance stopped the music. Diana and Yasuri had been walking to the party when three MS-13 gang members in a gray van shot them at point-blank range.
"They killed them! They killed them!" people shouted.
On 15th June 2018 their alleged murderer Dimas Antonio Ramos Aparicio was deported from the USA to El Salvador to face trial for aggravated homicide.
A comment posted on the above news report reads:
"The headline of the news is bad and is tendentious. It’s not about two men dressed as women. They are trans people, they should not even be called trans-homosexuals. As journalists, I do not think they are unaware of LGBT concepts."
In July 2017 the authorities arrested several members of the MS-13 gang which allegedly killed them, and in February 2021 Aníbal Alfredo Melara Saravia, Edwin Geovanni Méndez Avilés and Carlos Antonio Molina Rivera were sentenced to 60, 66 and 60 years in prison respectively.
Daniela was identified as D. Rodriguez in the TDoR 2017 memorial list released by Transgender Europe in November 2017.
https://www.20minutos.com/noticia/76222/0/el-salvador-condenan-asesinatos-de-mujeres-transexuales/
