Natalia Mosquera's family says that the 46-year-old Colombian woman had moved to Spain in search of a better life.
"She worked as a nurse taking care of an elderly couple" and "she was paying for the university degree of one of her children," according to the story of Karen Etayo, a niece.
Now, Mosquera's family seeks through a fundraising campaign to raise enough money to travel from Colombia to the European country and be able to claim her remains:
the Colombian immigrant was the victim in January of a brutal femicide that shocked the paradisiacal city of Marbella
, in the south of Spain.
Police said her ex-partner, a man facing a restraining order for domestic violence, confessed to killing her, mutilating her to make it difficult to identify her and dumping her in the Mediterranean.
Her corpse was found by people who were walking on the shores of the
Real de Zaragoza beach
, a tourist enclave near the center of Marbella.
The femicide, identified by the Spanish National Police as Leonel H., 45 years old and also a Colombian national, was arrested last week in connection with the violation of the order and the disappearance of Mosquera.
Two days later he confessed to the crime, according to police.
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"Your children cannot travel" due to lack of resources
Natalia Mosquera, originally from Cali, had studied nursing in Colombia and worked in Spain as a cleaner after emigrating there five years ago, reports the Spanish newspaper El País.
Much of what she earned she sent to her two sons in their twenties, who do not have the resources to repatriate the body of her mother.
"We are very saddened by the tragic death of our aunt, but it affects us and it hurts us more to know that her children cannot travel (to Spain) because we do not have sufficient financial resources," said Karen Etayo, Mosquera's niece, to the Europa Press news agency.
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She was the one who created a donation campaign on the Vaki Impacto portal, where she details that her aunt had obtained Spanish residence and "she was a very responsible and honest person."
The help received so far, he said, is still not enough for the family to buy even one of the plane tickets.
“If they had left him in jail, she would still be with us”
Natalia Mosquera had a five-month relationship with Leonel H., El País indicated.
According to her niece, the woman ended the courtship in November after being alarmed by her violent behavior.
"He didn't like it and he started harassing her," Etayo said.
“My aunt plucked up her nerve,” she said, and she sued him in December after he beat her.
"She told my grandmother that she was very afraid
," the niece explained.
A court specialized in gender violence prohibited the man from contacting his ex-partner and issued a restraining order that prohibited him from approaching him within 500 meters for 16 months.
They also gave him a six-month prison sentence, but this was carried out after the attacker promised not to violate the restraining order.
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"If they had left him in jail, she would still be with us," claimed her niece, who explained that
the attacker confronted Mosquera on Sunday, January 8, when she was leaving the church.
Her body was found on the beach that same day.
Leonel H. was arrested the following Monday, after the victim's family reported to the police that he had violated the restraining order.
A friend of the attacker was also arrested days later, and accused of helping him move her wife, still alive, to the beach where she was found dead.
Search for the remains
The Special Group for Underwater Activities (GEAS) of the Spanish Civil Guard continued this Sunday to search for the remains of Mosquera, who was beheaded and also stripped of her arms.
The search began on January 12 on the same beach where the femicide confessed to having committed the crime.
The National Police said the man has been charged with murder and violation of a restraining order.
The authorities have said that it is a complex investigation because, although the waters of the beach are clear and not so deep, the area is large.
At least five divers were participating this weekend in the search.
Mosquera's identity was confirmed after a DNA test, the Civil Guard reported.
According to the Government Delegation against Gender Violence,
the femicide of Mosquera is the fourth crime of this type in Spain so far in 2023.
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