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Alas Tensas warns the femicide of Ana Vivian Suárez may have been covered up as a suicide
The Alas Tensas Observatory confirmed the murder of the 21-year-old woman, found dead on August 13 in La Palma, Pinar del Río, and raised its 2026 count to 59. According to community sources of the observatory, the victim's former partner is being prosecuted.
The Alas Tensas Gender Observatory (OGAT) added Ana Vivian Suárez Cruz to its list of femicides "after verifying new information" about her death, which occurred on August 13 in the municipality of La Palma, in Pinar del Río, and raised to 59 the cases documented in Cuba in 2026. The organization warned that the killing could fit a pattern in which the attacker simulates the victim's suicide to escape criminal liability.
According to community sources consulted by the observatory, the young woman's former partner, named as the main suspect, is being prosecuted, and eyewitnesses said they had seen him during a reconstruction of the events carried out by the local police. The observatory said the man had a history of violence against women and that it is keeping the investigation open given the possibility that another person took part.
The results of the forensic investigation have not been made public, nor has a detailed official account of the circumstances of the death, and the suspect's exact position in the proceedings is not known either. The first reports about the case were spread by a communicator living in the United States, and doubts had arisen since then about the conditions in which the young woman was found.
The independent counts do not match: with this case, Alas Tensas tallies 59 femicides so far this year, while 14ymedio counts 55, because that paper does not consider the deaths of women in robberies or other chance circumstances to be gender-based killings. The observatory also records 38 attempted femicides and two killings of men in contexts of femicidal violence.
In its January-to-August report, the observatory documented 49 femicides, of which 37 (75.5%) were committed by partners or former partners: 25 by former partners and 12 by partners at the time. In 28 of those 49 cases it was unknown whether the victims had filed previous complaints against their attackers, a gap that, according to the organization, makes it impossible to know whether there were warning signs and protection measures.
Sources: 14ymedio · Infobae · Cubanet
Data updated: 2026-10-23T16:15:00.000Z