A feminist demonstrator in Mexico City appears to have accidentally firebombed members of her own protest in a failed attempt to strike police during a rally earlier this week.
80,000 women took to the streets of Mexico City on Sunday during International Women’s Day to protest what they see as a patriarchal culture that enables femicide, according to NBC News. During the two days of unrest that ensued, women rallied outside official buildings like the National Palace where Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador resides, clashing with security forces as they advocated a gambit of feminist political causes.
One dramatic video from that protest shows a woman wearing a blue backpack launching what appears to be a firebomb at police. However her weapon lands short, igniting one of her fellow protestors who is extinguished by what appears to be a first aid worker who was nearby.
Mexican pro abortion Feminists try to learn how to throw a bomb… without much success pic.twitter.com/PaEYqCBPvH
— Alejandro Bermudez (@albermudezr) March 9, 2020
Other videos have emerged of feminist protestors using fire and smoke bombs as weapons against police outside Mexico City’s official buildings. (RELATED: Supreme Court Allows Trump’s Remain In Mexico Program To Stay In Place)
Thousands in Mexico City protest against gender-based violence for International Women’s Day. pic.twitter.com/N12hXdPedO
— NBC News (@NBCNews) March 9, 2020
Another widely circulated clip from Mexico City’s eventful International Women’s Day appears to show protestors attempting to force entry into the Hermosillo Cathedral as worshipers barricade the doors with pews.
Feministas vamdalizan Catedral de Hermosillo, laicos fieles custodian la Iglesia de los ataques de estas mujeres. pic.twitter.com/F4i0lePHv8
— ???? Araceli (@AraVa76020963) March 9, 2020
Feminist demonstrations continued into Monday, as tens of thousands of women went on strike, hoping to call further attention to violence against women and force appreciation for the role of women in the Mexican economy and society, according to the New York Times.
About 1o women are murdered each day in Mexico, a statistic which was recently called to the public’s attention after two especially gruesome cases of women being tortured to death captured headlines across the country, NBC reported.
“In Mexico, it’s like we’re in a state of war; we’re in a humanitarian crisis because of the quantity of women that have disappeared or been killed,” the coordinator of the National Citizen’s Observatory of Femicide recently told the Associated Press.