The body of a 21-year-old woman, eight months pregnant, was discovered on 20 July on a rural road near Cali, Colombia, her hands and feet bound. According to local authorities, María Camila Potosí had been missing for four days. Her family says her baby was absent from the body; medical examiners have not yet confirmed the claim, and the infant’s whereabouts remain a pressing question in the investigation.

The case is one of several recent killings of women that prompted Colombia’s human rights ombudsman to demand urgent action from prosecutors. The ombudsman cited the murders of at least three other women in recent days—in Líbano, Barranquilla and Valledupar—and warned that such crimes often follow patterns of prior threats and control. Authorities have opened multiple lines of inquiry into the Potosí killing; a woman who was seen with the victim on a motorcycle shortly before her disappearance is being questioned, according to officials in Cali. The mayor has raised the reward for information to 200 million pesos (about $50,000).

What remains unverified is the fate of the foetus. Relatives insist the baby was removed from the body, but forensic results are pending. Investigators have not ruled out the involvement of more than four individuals, local police said. The president-elect, Abelardo de la Espriella, who takes office on 7 August, described the killing as ‘aberrant’ and pledged that protecting women would be a ‘policy priority’.

The killing occurs against a backdrop of stubbornly high violence against women across the region. In Mexico, the National Public Security System recorded 7,476 women as victims of intentional injury in June, the second-highest monthly total since records began in 2015, with the state of México, Guanajuato and Aguascalientes reporting the highest rates. In Brazil’s Paraíba state, authorities say 19 femicides were logged among 445 violent deaths in the first half of the year. And in Argentina, the disappearance of Micaela Albornoz, a 32-year-old woman from Rosario last seen on 24 June, has prompted a $5 million peso reward and a cross-province search after a security camera allegedly captured her on a highway in Santa Fe province. Her family warns she requires daily medication for mental health issues and may be held against her will. Colombia’s ombudsman has urged prosecutors to examine possible links between the killings and broader criminal networks, cautioning against reducing such crimes to isolated incidents of domestic conflict. The investigation into Potosí’s death continues; no arrests have been made to date.