Death of woman following Humilladero incident being investigated as possible gender violence crime

The Guardia Civil is investigating the death on Thursday of a 54-year-old woman from Humilladero who was admitted to the Regional Hospital in Malaga with severe head trauma. The case is being treated as one of possible gender violence and, as SUR has been able to confirm, a man with who the deceased had been romantically involved has been arrested.

According to sources, on Saturday 15 July, there was an initial altercation between the victim, who lived in the neighbourhood of La Palmilla, and the detainee. This was not the only incident the former couple had had over the last week.

On Thursday, at around four o'clock in the morning, the 112 Andalucía emergency control room received a call that a 54-year-old woman was having difficulty breathing. The victim was transferred to the Antequera Regional Hospital, where she was admitted with severe cranioencephalic trauma.

Given the seriousness of her injuries, it was decided to transfer the woman by helicopter to the Regional Hospital in Malaga city. She was rushed to the intensive care unit, but her condition deteriorated in the following hours and died late yesterday (Thursday) afternoon.

Sources close to the case reported that the injuries she suffered could be the result of an assault. The autopsy, to be carried out today (Friday), is expected to shed more light on the circumstances of her death.

If gender violence is confirmed, this would be the third serious – and in this case, fatal – attack caused by male aggression in the last month in Malaga province. At the end of June, a 66-year-old woman was shot in Torrox by her ex-husband, a retired military man who turned the gun on himself after the attack. The woman suffered serious injuries.

And, last week, a young woman was attacked by her boyfriend in Mijas. As SUR reported, the man, who is on the run, stabbed the girl in the thigh and she fell out of a moving car; it has not been clarified whether he threw her or she jumped out of the car to escape from him.

If the evidence confirms that this latest incident is a gender violence death, it would also be the third case this year, after that of Natalia, murdered by her ex-boyfriend and whose headless corpse was found floating in the water by Cañas de Marbella in January; and Paula, stabbed to death by her ex-boyfriend in La Carihuela, Torremolinos, in May.