Members of Malta’s Latino community filled a Sliema church on Sunday for a memorial to murder victim Sandra Ramirez.
The 43-year-old Colombian woman was found stabbed to death in the bed of a Sliema rental apartment on Saturday morning.
Police learned of the crime when a 43-year-old man, the victim's former partner, walked into the Sliema police station and told officers on duty that he had killed someone. He was arraigned on Sunday afternoon.
On Sunday morning, the day after the murder, all the benches within the church of St Gregory the Great were packed for a Spanish language mass dedicated to the memory of the victim.
Malta’s Latino Catholic community hosted the mass in tribute to Ramirez. Photo: Facebook/Misas en Español Malta“We are here for our beloved Colombian sister Sandra Ramirez, whose loss we mourn. In her honour, let us pray together for her eternal rest,” Viviana Ramos, who helps organise Spanish language masses in Malta, said towards the end of the ceremony.
Speaking afterward, she told Times of Malta that the Spanish mass in Sliema "has many attendees, but today, many of the faces we saw were new".
Ramos, 28, who like Ramirez is from Colombia, was shocked to hear the news on Saturday.
“I felt so bad after hearing the news. It was as if it happened to a sister. Something like this can happen to anyone. You could be sleeping next to an enemy without even knowing it,” she said.
“Unfortunately, very often in cases like this, women are the victims.
“We leave our country to improve our lives, leaving loved ones behind. We migrate to a much safer country only for it to end like that,” she added.
Nathaly Brinceno, 43, who read the first reading of the mass, made similar comments.
“The first thing I thought was that Sandra Ramirez is the same age as me,” Brinceno said.
“In South America, murders like this are far too common, but here in Malta it is really shocking,” she said.
Malta’s Latino catholic community hosts a Spanish language mass every Sunday, with four parishes hosting a mass each per month.