People filmed trans woman drowning in ravine and told others ‘don’t help her’

‘Sara Millerey González should still be alive.’

This is from Amnesty International on the murder of Sara, who was raped, had her arms and legs broken before being thrown into Colombian river.

On April 4, a trans woman was found in the La García ravine that winds through the Playa Rica neighbourhood of Bella.

Officials believe she was beaten by locals, possibly with ties to criminal gangs.

At about 3pm, Sara’s mother, Sandra Borja, received a phone call from her sister telling her that her daughter was drowning in a creek.

She found Sara clinging to a branch, the muddy waters of the river crashing against her back.

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Rather than help, a group of locals were filming her plead for help on their phones.

Those filming told passersby not to help Sara, described by those who knew her as charismatic and always with a smile on her face, a relative told El Colombiano.

‘There were some guys standing there, also with their cell phones recording what was happening to her, and they said not to help her,’ they recalled.

‘So there was fear of intervening for fear of being shot. It was necessary for the police to intervene.’

‘Mum, I’m going to die’

The video went viral on social media. The clip, seen by Metro, appeared to show someone in knee-high muddy water, her face visibly wounded, flailing around and unable to move their arms.

‘My first reaction was to throw myself into the river,’ Sandra told EL PAÍS.

‘I shouted to her: “Sweetheart, sweetheart, hold tight, hold on to that branch!”‘

‘Mum, I’m going to die,’ Sara told Sandra.

Sara was rescued by firefighters who brought her to La María Hospital in central Bello, but she died the following day, having developed hyperthermia. Her lungs were punctured and she suffered two cardiac arrests.

She was 32. Dozens attended her funeral on April 8.

The government has offered 50 million pesos (about £8,800) for information about Sara’s death.

Killing of trans woman an act of ‘fascism’

President Gustavo Petro described Sara’s death as ‘fascism’.

‘I’m criticised for speaking about Nazism. I know perfectly well that fascism is the violent elimination of human differences: political, religious, ethnic, sexual freedom,’ he posted on X.

‘What happened in Bello is called fascism, because there are Nazis in Colombia.’

‘She was the victim of an atrocious and hateful act,’ added Bello Mayor Lorena González Ospina on X.

Ospina said that the video of Sara fighting for her life going viral underscores the ‘indifference’ some people have towards trans lives.

‘We cannot allow transphobia to keep taking lives in silence,’ she said.

But some watching Sara may have wanted to help but simply could not, said Eliecer Sierra Torres, the CEO of the non-profit Friends of the World Foundation, told Metro.

‘Many witnesses observed helplessly what happened, paralysed by fear of suffering retaliation if they tried to help Sara,’ she said.

‘This reality of the armed conflict that persists in Colombia amplifies the vulnerability of already marginalised populations.’

‘We call on society and the media to raise awareness and not speculate or make a priori judgements that stigmatise trans women, avoiding narratives that label them as “deserving” of this violence,’ Torres added.

‘Hate speech normalises and perpetuates cycles of aggression that must be eradicated.’

Barely four months into 2025, 25 LGBTQ+ people have been murdered in Colombia, including 15 trans people, according to the monitoring group, the Spanish Human Rights Observatory.

While public support for gay, bisexual and lesbian rights is generally high in Colombia – with many pro-LGBTQ+ laws in the books – trans rights are not so much, the LGBTQ+ rights service Equaldex says.

ILGA LAC (International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association for Latin America and the Caribbean) says that the country is seeing a ‘resurgence of systematic violence’.

‘The memory of Sara Millerey González and all victims of hate crimes,’ added Torres, ‘must motivate us to build a more just and inclusive society.’

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