The Colombian Prosecutor’s Office found the remains of an eight-month-old baby in Cali this Thursday. The entity suspects that they belong to the daughter of María Camila Potosí, a young woman whose body was found lifeless on July 20 on the banks of a river in the same city. “The Technical Investigation Corps (CTI), with the support of the National Police, found human remains in a wooded area of Cali that would correspond to those of the daughter of the 21-year-old woman murdered in this city,” reads a statement released to the press. The entity has clarified that the National Institute of Legal Medicine and Forensic Sciences must carry out the corresponding analyses to confirm the identity of the one who was going to be called Alahia and had not yet been born: her mother was eight months pregnant when she was tortured and murdered.
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Potosí’s body was found on July 20 on the banks of the Meléndez River, four days after her disappearance in Polvorines, an informal neighborhood in the southwest of Cali. When the discovery was made, it was confirmed that Alahia was not in her mother’s womb. The family hoped that at least she had survived. “We were doing the paperwork and I asked if she had the baby in her body and they said no, she didn’t have it. That gave me hope that she is alive,” said Alba Ruby Gómez, the victim’s mother, to a local radio station. Authorities began the search and emphasized that finding the baby alive was the new priority.
The mayor of Cali, Alejandro Eder, has expressed his solidarity with the family after this Thursday’s discovery. He also stated that it is “a day of deep pain” for the entire city. “It forces us to redouble efforts to protect women, children, and adolescents and to continue working so that events like this do not happen again,” he said in statements to the media. He also called for “a strong punishment” for those responsible. The president-elect of Colombia, Abelardo de la Espriella, emphasized after the news broke that his government will champion “the toughening of penalties for murderers and child abusers.” “Those who committed this atrocity do not deserve to be called humans,” he wrote on X.
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Five arrests
The discovery of Alahia comes just hours after the police captured five people involved in the femicide of her mother. Among those arrested is a woman who was driving the motorcycle that the victim got on the afternoon of July 16, when she was last seen. This was confirmed by the commander of the Cali Metropolitan Police, Herbert Benavidez, who also noted that the detainees were trying to flee the country. The five will be charged with kidnapping, forced disappearance, aggravated femicide, and concealment of evidence.
Potosí disappeared after attending a prenatal check-up in Polvorines and then going to her sister-in-law’s house, located in the Meléndez neighborhood. There, she helped care for her sister-in-law’s cousin, who was sick. She left two hours later. Some cameras captured her getting on a motorcycle with another woman. Juliana Meneses, the victim’s sister, told Univisión about her suspicions regarding the driver. “No one knew her (…) Later we heard that two months ago [Potosí] had met her in a FAMI project, which is like a project where pregnant women go,” she said regarding the Family Woman and Childhood (FAMI) program of the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare, which offers support to pregnant women in vulnerable conditions.
