A group of at least a dozen pro-abortion women clashed with pro-life men outside of Mexico City’s main cathedral Sunday on International Women’s Day.
The women wore green bandanas to symbolize their support for abortion rights and ripped down and set on fire banners categorizing abortion as femicide, Reuters reported.
The women traded insults with the counter-protesters, some of whom were reported to have “shaved heads” and have given Nazi salutes, according to the outlet.
Incidents of violence occurred around the city on Sunday.
“At the doors to the National Palace where the president lives, activists tossed Molotov cocktails over a contingent of policewomen in riot gear who were among nearly 3,000 female officers deployed during the march,” Reuters said.
One protester was caught on video launching a Molotov cocktail into a crowd.
A female photographer from newspaper El Universal caught on fire and was later hospitalized with second-degree burns, according to TheBlaze.
Mexican pro abortion Feminists try to learn how to throw a bomb... without much success
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The city government said about 80,000 people marched through Mexico City to the public square.
Women in another part of the city wore black masks and used hammers to smash car windshields and burn building doors, Reuters reported.
Graffiti was also found on the National Palace and other buildings reading “the president doesn’t care about us” and “misogynist AMLO,” standing for President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, according to TheBlaze.
Activists said they took part in the demonstrations to express their anger at the rate of femicides, which are up 137 percent in Mexico over the past five years.
“They’re killing 10 women a day — the ones that we know about — in the country I’ve lived in my entire life, it’s unacceptable,” preschool teacher Daniela Garcia told Reuters.
Two recent cases of femicide have gained international attention, NBC News reported.
In one, Ingrid Escamilla was gruesomely murdered by her boyfriend, and police found her body skinned and missing organs.
In the other, 7-year-old Fátima Aldrighett was kidnapped as she waited for her mom to pick her up from school.
Her body was found four days later with visible signs of abuse.
Protesters sang the anti-femicide anthem “Song Without Fear” amid the violence on Sunday, according to Reuters.
Hector Camberos, a university student from Atizapan who participated in the rally, said there was “an element of sheer desperation.”
“This march conveys a really important message that women have a voice and they need to express themselves. I think there’s also an element of sheer desperation; most of these women have lost a lot of people in their life,” he told NBC.
“The situation in Mexico is really dire. There’s no capacity to feel safe — whether you are a man or a woman.”
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