Doctor murdered in Güines brings feminicide count to 47 recorded cases in Cuba
Yanelkys Alonso Valdés, a 55-year-old obstetrician, died in Mayabeque after being attacked by her ex-partner. The Gender Observatory of Alas Tensas now counts 47 feminicide victims in 2025.
Obstetrician murdered in Mayabeque brings count to 47 feminicides registered by Alas Tensas
Doctor Yanelkys Alonso Valdés, a 55-year-old obstetrician, died in the early hours of Sunday in Güines, Mayabeque, after being attacked in her home by her ex-partner. According to oncubanews.com, the victim's mother, a woman over 75 years old, was seriously injured; a family member who intervened to defend them also suffered injuries. The alleged attacker, who injured himself after the attack, remains in custody.
The case brings to 47 the number of feminicides counted by the Gender Observatory of Alas Tensas (OGAT) in Cuba as of Monday. The feminist platform's registry also includes 20 attempted feminicides and two men murdered in cases classified as related to feminicide violence.
Alas Tensas also announced that it will incorporate a new category for possible cases of feminicide suicide, a form that, according to the organisation, is particularly difficult to corroborate and for which it considers it necessary to accumulate information to make it visible.
Recent background and provincial context
The new case comes weeks after the same platform reported the death of Adis Glennis Rodríguez Mulet, 34 years old and seven months pregnant, who died on 29 July in Bayamo after suffering injuries caused, according to the organisation's report, by her partner. The daughter she was expecting did not survive either.
Between May and June, Alas Tensas had counted 17 cases, and in seven of them the alleged perpetrators had a history of violence. The organisation then called for specialised structures to protect women at risk and effective mechanisms to deal with complaints before new attacks occur.
Alonso Valdés's murder again places Mayabeque among the territories with the highest incidence. The province registered six tried feminicides during 2025, a figure that placed it among the three with the most cases alongside Camagüey and Holguín, second only to Havana, according to official data released this month.
Divergence between independent figures and official statistics
Alas Tensas's counts do not necessarily match Cuban Government statistics, which recently reported that courts identified 49 women over 15 years old murdered for reasons of gender during 2025, with a rate of 1.19 cases per 100,000 women. The official figure is lower than the 76 cases registered in judicial proceedings in 2024 and the 60 in 2023.
That official register indicates that 46.9 per cent of the victims in 2025 were murdered by their ex-partners, and that 38 of the 49 women were between 20 and 44 years old. In almost nine out of ten cases the crime occurred in the home; 32 of the victims had minor children, who together total 54 children left without their mothers.
The divergence between the two counts reflects one of the sustained demands by feminist organisations: the need for public and systematic statistics on gender-based violence. Cuba does not classify feminicide as a specific offence in its Criminal Code; murders for reasons of gender are prosecuted through figures such as homicide or murder, which makes comparison of data difficult and, according to the organisations, hampers the institutional response to each new case.
Source: Google News CU — Crime