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Mariolis López Silio, 37 years old and a mother of four children, was murdered last Friday in Güines, in the province of Mayabeque, a crime that the Gender Observatory of Alas Tensas (OGAT) confirmed as femicide and raises the total to 20 cases recorded in Cuba in 2026.
The attacker is her ex-partner and the father of her two youngest children, identified as Michael Pérez Sanabria, who remains at large and represents—according to OGAT—a continuing threat to the community.
The observatory reported the use of a firearm and the kidnapping of the victim in incidents that occurred on April 24 in various locations in Güines, including Mariolis's home and an open field known as the "Motocross Track."
Mariolis leaves four underage children orphaned: a breastfeeding baby just months old, a three-year-old boy, a twelve-year-old boy, and a fifteen-year-old girl. Two of them —the baby and the three-year-old— are the children of the aggressor.
Teresita Rodríguez, the victim's cousin, wrote on Facebook: "This murderer is named Michael, and today he killed my cousin Mariolis, leaving four children orphaned, two of whom are his: a nursing baby and a three-year-old boy, who all adored him. If you see him, report him to the police; there is a reward for anyone who finds him."
Other family members, friends, and neighbors of the victim also shared photographs of the suspect on social media and offered a reward for information regarding his whereabouts, in response to what they describe as a negligent response from the Güines police.
OGAT verified the history of violence of the aggressor against Mariolis and her mother, who suffers health repercussions from previous assaults.
The observatory joined community criticism against the police institution. According to social media posts, the police in Güines did not respond to Mariolis' call before the crime.
In its statement, the independent organization urged the community to “stop the revictimization of Mariolis, the spread of false information, and the racism surrounding these terrible events”.
She also spoke out categorically about crimes resulting from gender-based violence: "Nothing justifies taking a life violently. Women are human beings, not private property."
The case occurs just two days after the double femicide of a mother and her 12-year-old daughter in Batabanó, also in Mayabeque, making this province in western Cuba a site of an alarming concentration of gender-related crimes in just a few days.
April is shaping up to be the most violent month of the year: at least eight women have been murdered with this period still ongoing, according to the influencer Niover Licea (Nio reporting a crime). In the first quarter of 2026, OGAT verified 13 femicides: six in January, one in February, and six in March.
The pattern of institutional negligence is not isolated. In Bayamo, on April 13, a woman was murdered while heading to the police to report her attacker, who intercepted her in public.
Only three days earlier, on April 10, a 23-year-old mother was killed by her ex-partner in her own home in Matanzas, in a case that highlights the same pattern of vulnerability.
On April 25, the Cuban Foreign Ministry published on social media that "there is and will be no impunity in Cuba for acts of gender-based violence," a statement that contrasts with the 20 documented femicides so far in 2026 and the absence of a comprehensive law on gender-based violence on the Island.
The 2022 Penal Code does not classify femicide as an independent crime, but only as an aggravating factor, and the government does not publish official statistics on these crimes.
The Alas Tensas Observatory also reminded the public that reporting these crimes is not a crime, and that an anonymous form is available on its website to report cases of extreme violence against women and girls.
In 2025, Cuba recorded 48 confirmed femicides, with 83.3% committed by current or former partners, according to data from the OGAT underreporting. With 20 cases in just four months, 2026 is unfortunately on track to exceed that number.
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