Two women murdered in four hours: do femicides increase in summer?

BarcelonaTwo women murdered by their ex-partners in four hours. This is the tragic toll of this Thursday, after a Civil Guard agent murdered his ex-partner, also a police officer, at a barracks in Asturias, and another man fatally stabbed his ex-partner in a shopping center in Murcia. The first aggressor was shot dead by his Civil Guard colleagues, while the man accused of the Murcia crime was arrested early this morning after attempting to flee.

According to data from the Ministry of Equality, since the beginning of 2026, 35 women have been murdered across the State, the worst figure at this point in the year since 2021. In Catalonia, since the beginning of the year, four femicides have been recorded. If we focus on the summer, this summer is particularly tragic: between June and July alone, nine women have been murdered in Spain.

But do the hottest months see a year-on-year increase in femicides? In gender-based violence, summer is always considered a high-risk period, mainly because the time spent with the aggressor increases and some routines are broken. Heat episodes are also considered a risk factor for stressful and tense situations that can occur in the family home, as indicated by a recent report from the Ministry of the Interior analyzing the femicides that took place in 2024. The same document also warns that weekends, especially Saturdays, see more homicides concentrated than the rest of the days.

In an article in ARA, psychologist specialized in victimology Alba Alfageme also points out that in summer "in a violent relationship, the accumulation of violent moments exponentially intensifies." Data from the Ministry of Equality indicate this risk associated with holidays. Analyzing the available data from the last 20 years, the monthly average of women murdered by their partners or ex-partners was 19% higher during the summer months than during the rest of the year. We are talking about an average of 5.43 homicides per month.

But this effect is not only significant in femicides, but also relevant in domestic violence complaints. There are data available from the last 17 years which indicate that in the third quarter of the year there are 9% more complaints for gender violence. During the summer, crimes against sexual freedom reported throughout the State also increase by 22%, with data from between 2017 and 2025.

Open case and restraining order

In the case of Asturias, the woman was 50 years old and was murdered by her ex-partner, aged 49. Both were civil guards. They had an 18-year-old son and 14-year-old twins. The attacker had open files for gender-based violence. In fact, he had received a very serious disciplinary sanction a few days ago. For this reason, he no longer had his service weapon and would have stolen it from lockers or snatched a weapon from a colleague to kill his ex-partner. According to some media outlets, the man became popular some time ago because he was the handler of a police dog that he adopted when the animal was retired from the force.

The second case was registered a few hours later, around five in the afternoon, in a shopping center in Murcia, where a woman was allegedly stabbed by her ex-partner. A call to the National Police alerted to the discovery of a dead woman with signs of violence in the back room of a business. The Civil Guard arrested the man accused of the events early this Thursday morning in the Murcian town of Puerto Lumbreras.

According to the Superior Court of Justice of the Region of Murcia (TSJMU), he is accused of the crimes of "homicide and breach of sentence", as he had been convicted of mistreatment and was subject to a restraining order prohibiting him from approaching within 500 meters of the woman. The magistrate has also "provisionally attributed the guardianship of the couple's minor daughter" to the competent public institution" of the government of the Region of Murcia so that "the necessary protection measures can be applied".