Ariel López Romero, a teacher and LGBTI+ activist, was stabbed inside his house on Thursday, August 1, 2019 in Barranquilla, Atlántico, Colombia.

Ariel was working as a language teacher at the San Antonio de Padua high school in Barranquilla. He was an active member of Caribe Afirmativo, an organization aimed at raising awareness of LGBTI+ rights. As part of his commitment to Caribe Afirmativo, Ariel organized and facilitated various workshops focused on human rights in general, as well as the defence and guarantees of the rights for activists. He also helped coordinate other programmes developed in the 2016 peace agreement which aim to strengthen and protect LGBTI+ rights.

Ariel’s is the eighth LGBTI+ murder in Barranquilla since 2018, out of which four of the victims were teachers. According to Caribe Afirmativo, Atlántico is the third region with the highest levels of homophobic violence in Colombia, after Antioquia and Arauca.