Karina’s five-year-old daughter was sleeping in the next room when her ex-partner picked up a hammer.
It was September 22, 2025, the day she turned 35. She had returned home to Fontibón, Bogotá, after dinner with friends. According to her account, the blows landed on her skull and face—between 20 and more than 24, depending on the accounts. As it was all happening, a single thought kept her going: I’m not going to die.
She survived. There was a coma, hospitals, surgeries, and months of treatment. Her daughter had to learn what it meant to miss a mother who was still alive, but often absent.
A year later, Karina Rincón Durán is celebrating another year of life, in a completely new one. She showed her face on television for the first time, created a foundation bearing her name to support women who are victims of violence, and saw her attacker sentenced to 21 years in prison, a sentence she considers insufficient.
Because there are wounds no photograph can show. And there are also those who, even so, once again blow out the candles for a new year of life.
