livestreamed

Drug gang suspected in torture and murder of two young women, and a 15-year-old girl, in crime that shocks Argentina.

Clashes have erupted between demonstrators and police as thousands protested in Argentina’s capital, Buenos Aires, to demand justice over the torture and killing of two young women and a teenager, which was livestreamed on social media by a purported drug gang.

Thousands of protesters took to the streets on Saturday to denounce the killings that shocked Argentinians after it was revealed that the murders were perpetrated live on the Instagram platform and watched by 45 members of a private account, officials said.

The bodies of Morena Verdi and Brenda del Castillo, cousins aged 20, and 15-year-old Lara Gutierrez were found buried on Wednesday in the yard of a house in a southern suburb of Buenos Aires, five days after they went missing.

Investigators said the victims, thinking they were going to a party, were lured into a van on September 19, allegedly as part of a plan to “punish” them for violating gang code and to serve as a warning to others.

Police discovered a video of the triple murder after a suspect in the disappearance of the three revealed it under questioning, according to Javier Alonso, the security minister for the Buenos Aires province.

In the footage, a gang leader is heard saying: “This is what happens to those who steal drugs from me.”

Argentinian media reported that the torturers cut off fingers, pulled out nails, and beat and suffocated the victims.

While most of the protesters who took part in the demonstration on Saturday marched peacefully, some confronted police who responded by aggressively pushing them away using their batons and shields, according to video clips and images posted by the La Izquierda Diario online news site.

As they marched towards the Argentinian parliament with thousands of supporters, family members of the victims held a banner with their names, “Lara, Brenda, Morena”, and placards with the images of the three.

“Women must be protected more than ever,” Brenda’s father, Leonel del Castillo, was quoted by the AFP news agency as telling reporters at the protest. He had earlier said he had not been able to identify his daughter’s body due to the torture she had endured.

“It was a narco-femicide!” read a sign at the protest. Another declared, “Our lives are not disposable!”

The protesters also banged on drums as they marched and denounced the “inaction” of the administration of President Javier Milei against what they called the growing “narco” influence in the country.

An image posted on social media showed protesters burning an image of Milei and other political allies of his administration.

Antonio del Castillo, the grandfather of the slain 20-year-old cousins, was in tears, calling his granddaughters’ killers “bloodthirsty”.

“You wouldn’t do what they did to them to an animal,” he said.

On Friday, Minister of National Security Patricia Bullrich announced the arrest of a fifth suspect in the case, bringing the total to three men and two women. The fifth suspect, accused of offering logistical support in the killing by providing a vehicle involved in the crime, was arrested in the Bolivian border city of Villazon .

Authorities have also released a photograph of the alleged mastermind, a 20-year-old Peruvian, who remains at large.

Meta, the parent company of Instagram, has disputed that the livestream occurred on its platform, according to the AFP, citing a company spokesperson.

Amnesty also says US President Donald Trump is responsible for ‘multiplicity of assaults’ on human rights.

Israel is perpetrating a “live-streamed genocide” in Gaza, committing illegal acts with the “specific intent” of wiping out Palestinians, Amnesty International has said.

Israeli forces in Gaza have violated the United Nations Genocide Convention with acts that include “causing serious bodily or mental harm to civilians” and “deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction”, the human rights organisation said in its annual report released on Monday.

Israel has repeatedly “denied, obstructed and failed to allow and facilitate” humanitarian access to Gaza, and invaded the southern city of Rafah, despite warnings by the international community and the International Court of Justice about the “devastating effect it would have on the civilian population”, Amnesty said.

Israeli air strikes have also frequently hit civilians who were following evacuation orders, while its forces continued to “arbitrarily detain and, in some cases, forcibly disappear Palestinians”, the rights group said.

“Since 7 October 2023 – when Hamas perpetrated horrific crimes against Israeli citizens and others and captured more than 250 hostages – the world has been made audience to a live-streamed genocide,” Amnesty’s secretary-general, Agnes Callamard, said in the introduction to the report.

“States watched on as if powerless, as Israel killed thousands upon thousands of Palestinians, wiping out entire multigenerational families, destroying homes, livelihoods, hospitals and schools.”

Israel and “its powerful allies, first among them the USA, claimed that or acted as if international law did not apply to them”, Callamard said.

Israel has strongly denied committing genocide, insisting that it is acting in self-defence against Hamas and that it takes extraordinary measures to protect civilians.

More than 51,300 people, including at least 17,400 children, have been killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 7, 2023, according to Palestinian health authorities.

About 1,200 people were killed in Hamas’s October 7 attacks on Israel, according to Israeli authorities.

In its report, Amnesty also raised alarm about “unprecedented forces”, including the administration of United States President Donald Trump, that it said posed a threat to human rights globally.

“A multiplicity of assaults – against human rights accountability, against international law, and against the UN – have been but some of the hallmarks of the first 100 days of US President Donald Trump’s ‘reign’ in 2025,” Callamard said.

“But those reckless and punishing offensives, against efforts to end global poverty and undo long standing racial and gender-based discrimination and violence, did not start this year. Red lines don’t turn green overnight.”

Amnesty also expressed concern about alleged human rights violations committed by Russia in its invasion of Ukraine and attacks on gender equality in Afghanistan and Iran.

“The Taliban government criminalized the public existence of women and girls, passing so-called vice and virtue laws, denying their rights to work and education. Dozens of women protesters were forcibly disappeared or arbitrarily detained,” Callamard said.

“In Iran, new compulsory veiling laws intensified oppression of women and girls, imposing flogging, exorbitant fines and harsh prison sentences, while officials and vigilantes who violently attack women and girls for defying the law continued with impunity.”