The remains of a dismembered woman have been found scattered in a stream near Rosario, prosecutors said Wednesday, the latest in a series of killings in Santa Fe Province.
The region, which has long been seen as a hotbed for violent crime and drug-trafficking, is still reeling after the discovery of two young women shot dead on Monday.
"On Monday, some fishermen saw an arm floating in the water, a search was ordered and the other arm, and later, a leg were found nearby," Sebastián Carranza, communications director for the second prosecutor's office in Rosario, which is in charge of the case, told the C5N TV news channel.
The first discovery occurred in the Saladillo stream near the the city of Rosario, Santa Fe Province, some 340 km north of the Argentine capital.
The head, a torso cut in two at chest level and another leg were also found in different parts of the stream that have little current, near shacks and improvised housing.
According to Carranza, the corpse is "the body of a woman between 40 and 50 years old."
He added: "It is estimated that the remains were in the water for three or four days.”
"Fingerprints could be taken and we are waiting for identification. The body has clean cuts that have been made with an important element," he pointed out.
The macabre discovery occurred on Monday, the same day two young women, aged 20 and 26, were shot dead in two separate events recorded in different parts of the city.
In the first case, the young woman was shot by two men on a motorbike. Two hours later, another young woman was also shot in the chest in front of her house.
The police are investigating whether these last two events are related to clashes between criminal gangs involved in drug-trafficking in Rosario, Argentina's third most populous city and home to the country's largest agricultural export port.
The incidents are the latest in a spate of violence in the region. In January, government officials held an emergency meeting with national and provincial officials at the Casa Rosada, amid concerns of a surge of ‘narco’ violence in Santa Fe Province.
In the first half of January, 17 murders alone were recorded in the province, most in Rosario.
- TIMES/AFP
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