Editor’s note: Andrea Amarante on Sunday died from injuries she sustained in the fire. 

Two people died and at least five others were injured on Monday when a man threw a Molotov cocktail into the room of a Buenos Aires boarding house in which two lesbian couples lived.

The fire took place at around 1 a.m. in a house at 1600 Olavarría St., between Isabel la Católica and Montes de Ocoa in Buenos Aires’s Barracas neighborhood. The blaze forced roughly 30 people to evacuate, and the injured were taken to local hospitals.

Police say Justo Fernando Barrientos, 68, sprayed fuel and set fire to the room where Mercedes Figueroa, 52, lived together with Pamela Fabiana Cobas, 52, and Sofía Castro Riglos, 49, and Andrea Amarante, 42.

Figueroa and Cobas both died. Castro and Amarante are hospitalized at Penna Hospital in Buenos Aires.

Witnesses say the fire started on the second floor when Barrientos threw a Molotov cocktail inside the women’s room, and it soon spread throughout the property. LGBTQ organizations in Argentina have described the blaze as a hate crime because Barrientos had already threatened to kill the women because they are lesbians.

“We are in a rather complex context, where from the apex of power, the president himself and his advisors and downwards permanently instill a hate speech, instilling it when they close the (National Institute Against Discrimination, Xenophobia and Racism or INADI), stigmatizing the population that is there and the vulnerable groups,” Congressman Esteban Paulón, a well-known LGBTQ activist, told the Washington Blade.

“All this is generating a climate of violence,” he said. “The fact that it happened in the city of Buenos Aires, which is terrible … has to be investigated.”

Paulón said President Javier Milei’s government has installed in the public discourse speeches and actions against the LGBTQ community that have provoked more violence based on sexual orientation and gender identity. 

“All that is installed … and then there are people who fail to make a mediation of that, that fail to make a critical analysis of that and can end up generating an act of hatred like this, which is tragic and that already took the lives of two people,” he said.

The Argentine LGBT+ Federation on social media said it was looking for the victims’ families and friends, but has yet to be able to connect with them.

“We are going to stand by them, making ourselves available for whatever they and their families need, and we will closely follow the court case so that there is justice,” said the organization. “But we cannot fail to point out that hate crimes are the result of a culture of violence and discrimination that is sustained on hate speeches that today are endorsed by several officials and referents of the national government.”

100% Diversidad y Derechos, another advocacy group, demanded the investigation address the attack “with a gender perspective and as motivated by hatred towards lesbian identity.”

Barrientos has been arrested, and will be charged with murder. Activists have requested authorities add discrimination and hate provisions to the charges.

Protests have broken out across Argentina in recent weeks after the dismissal of transgender people from their government jobs.

President Javier Milei’s action is in stark contract with the progress seen in 2023, where the government’s hiring of trans people increased by 900 percent within the framework of the Trans Labor Quota Law that had been in place since 2021. 

Among those affected is Sofia Diaz, a “survivor” who shared her testimony with the Washington Blade hours after she traveled from Chaco Province to Buenos Aires to protest her dismissal.

Presentes, an LGBTQ news agency, reported the government dismissed more than 85 trans employees in less than two weeks.

Diaz, 49, holds a degree in combined arts. She joined the National Social Security Administration (ANSES) in 2022 under the Trans Labor Inclusion Law. The layoffs began in January and left many people feeling uncertain and anguished. It was her turn a few days ago.

Diaz in an interview recounted how the situation became progressively more complicated, with difficulties in accessing information about her employment status and the eventual confirmation of dismissals through WhatsApp messages. This government action, according to Diaz, violates the law.

“We were on a Friday, I think on March 24, in the office and we have a WhatsApp group of other colleagues from all over Argentina who entered through the trans labor quota and they tell us if we can get our pay stubs on the intranet,” Diaz recalled. “So, I tried to enter, I could not, I talked to two other colleagues and they told me no, they could not, and so we went to another person. He couldn’t either.”

“Some people told us that it could be a system error. Well, we were never calm, let’s say not how this issue of installing fear and the perversion with which they do it ends,” she added. “This sadism of … inflicting pain and speculating with your misfortune and so on … is something that characterizes Javier Milei’s government.”

Diaz recalled a list of those dismissed from the agency began to circulate from the union in the afternoon. A colleague passed it on to her, “and well, unfortunately I was also on that list.” 

“At that moment the whole weekend went by with anguish, crying, and talking with other colleagues from other places, not only trans, but everyone, everyone and everyone,” she said. “On Monday when we went to try to enter, we could not enter with the biometric, which is the thumb we had to use every morning to enter.”

Despite the difficult moment through which she is going, the trans activist stressed to the Blade that she will continue protesting and will even sue the government because her dismissal is illegal and “violates the constitution itself.”

The LGBTQ community and its allies have mobilized and organized demonstrations, highlighting the importance of defending the rights won and fighting against discrimination and exclusion. Diaz emphasized the fight is not only for the people affected today, but also for future generations, saying the historical memory of the struggles for inclusion and social justice must be kept alive.

“The Argentine government thus faces a key challenge in human and labor rights, where public pressure and social mobilization can play a determining role in protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ people,” Diaz said. 

Chile’s Parole Commission on Tuesday rejected a request to allow one of the four men convicted of murdering Daniel Zamudio in 2012 to serve the remainder of his sentence outside of prison.

Raúl López Fuentes earlier this month asked the commission to release him on parole. Zamudio’s family and members of the Movement for Homosexual Integration and Liberation, a Chilean LGBTQ rights group, had gone to court to block the request.

Among the arguments put forward that influenced the commission’s decision is what Movilh categorized as his “high risk of recidivism, linked to the adherence of an antisocial behavior with a tendency to minimize his acts transgressing social norms.” 

The commission pointed out that López has psychopathic traits because he is aware of the damage he did to Zamudio and his family. 

“In addition, he maintains a high risk of violence, not being advisable to grant the benefit,” the report said.

Zamudio was a young Chilean man who became a symbol of the fight against homophobic violence in his country and around the world after López and three other young men with alleged ties to a neo-Nazi group beat him for several hours in Santiago’s San Borja Park on March 2, 2012. Zamudio succumbed to his injuries a few weeks later.

The attack sparked widespread outage in Chile and prompted a debate over homophobia in the country that highlighted the absence of an anti-discrimination law. Lawmakers in the months after Zamudio’s murder passed a law that bears Zamudio’s name.

López in 2013 received a 15-year prison sentence after he was convicted of killing Zamudio. Patricio Ahumada received a life sentence, while Alejandro Angulo Tapia is serving 15 years in prison. Fabían Mora Mora received a 7-year prison sentence.

Zamudio’s mother, Jacqueline Vera, exclusively told the Washington Blade after the commission rejected López’s request that “we as a family are calmer.”

“Even with my husband we were in a lot of pain at the beginning. It was like a blow of very strong emotions, so we tried to stay calm because we still had to solve the problem,” Vera said. “We had four days to solve it.”

López will have to serve the remaining three years of his sentence before his release.

“I will continue working to improve the Zamudio Law and so that this murderer does not leave prison because he is a danger to society, he does not represent repentance and people like this cannot be free,” she said. “For the same reason, we have to work so that hate crimes have life imprisonment and that is what we will concentrate on.”