Paz Fernández's body is found, with injuries, in a dam in Villayón

The uncertainty about Paz Fernández Borrego´s location, the woman from Gijón who disappeared last 13th February, has finished in the worst way. A canoeist found this 43-year-old woman´s body yesterday afternoon in Arbón dam, in the parish of Villayón. The woman could be identified by the colour of her hair, the black dress she was wearing -the same one with which she was seen for the last time- and mainly for the tattoo she had on her shoulder, as the Civil Guard sources told. The autopsy will determine today the origin of the injuries she shows. However, the circumstances of the finding say it all. The body was found 14 kilometres from the place where her vehicle was parked, in the surroundings of Jarrio Hospital, in Coaña, and 12 from the place where she was last seen and where the pension where she had left her personal belongings and had foreseen to spend the night was? "The family is torn to pieces", a next-of-kin assured yesterday night. There was no need that the relatives went to identify the body.

In this tragic way was put to an end the relentless search to fin the location of this 43-year-old mother of two children. A neighbour from the parish of Valdés, with family bounds with the municipality of Villayón and fond of canoeing, was who warned the Civil Gard. At half past three in the afternoon, and while he was practising this sport, he discovered a body floating in the water, upside down, in an area known as "Arbón bypass".

Several patrols of the Military Branch, the incumbent judge from Luarca and the Civil Guard Scientific Police, as well as the coroner travelled to the scene of the finding to proceed with the removal of the body. The woman´s body, initially yet to be identified, was "in an area of difficult access, in the bank of the Arbón dam", as the branch itself informed. That was why it was necessary the intervention of the Special Group in charge of Underwater Activities (GEAS), who arrived to the area at seven in the evening. Immediately they recovered the body, using a zodiac boat, in an operation which lasted for half an hour.

The mortal remains of the woman from Gijón were taken in a hearse to the Legal Medicine Institute from Asturias, in La Corredoria (Oviedo), where the autopsy will take place in the course of today. A search engine which has lasted three weeks, and which has had the region on tenterhooks. It is yet to clear up the reasons for the death.

The news of Paz Fernández Borrego´s identification means a tragic blow for her family, who until the last moment had kept hope of finding her alive, under the belief that it was a voluntary disappearance. In fact, a deployment of volunteers was being prepared for next weekend in the parish of Nava, in order to find new clues about her location. The interest of the family to spread her disappearance was maximum, and that was why billboards were forwarded in the social networks, stuck in shops, venues and public places of all the western part of the region and the coast of Lugo, and deep search workings to find her took place.

However, as days went by, the conviction that the woman´s absence was forced gained strength, until finally it has been confirmed.