Kriti Mehrotra
When Nagore Laffage was slain on July 7, 2008, in one of the worst ways imaginable while hundreds of miles away from her Irún home, it honestly left her loved ones heartbroken to their core. This much has actually even been evidenced in Netflix’s ‘You Are Not Alone: Fighting the Wolf Pack,’ which delves deep into how the wondrous bull-running San Fermín festival in Pamplona, Spain, has often been a target ground for predators and rapists. Yet for now, if you simply wish to learn more about the one individual to have arguably helped in making some of the biggest changes in this festival’s organization, Nagore’s mother Asun Casasola Padro, we’ve got the details for you.
Who is Asum Casasola?
Although born in Villamuriel de Cerrato, Palencia, Spain, in 1957 as the elder of two daughters to a housewife and a day laborer, she primarily grew up in Irún, Guipúzcoa, as her family had relocated there when she and her sister were eight and six years old, respectively. It hence comes as no surprise that this is precisely where she remained even while pursuing a degree in Administrative Assistant and Foreign Trade Technician, only to never practice in the field. Them came her decision to settle down and begin a family, which she did in Irún too – she’d admittedly fallen in love with this city and had no plans of separating from it anytime soon.
However, the same could not be said for Asun’s daughter Nagore as she wished to evolve into a nurse by studying at the best university the nation had to offer, which was all the way in Navarra. The latter thus relocated, unaware it would soon inadvertently lead to her demise on July 7, 2008 – she’d said no to a sexual proposition following an evening out celebrating the San Fermín festival. Asun does sometimes wonder why her daughter simply didn’t comply even if she were unwilling because it would’ve saved her life, but then she remembers everything they stand for and is proud Nagore stood her ground.
In fact, since that fateful 2008 evening, Asun herself has since taken up social activism in various forms to keep her daughter’s legacy alive. She’s actually involved in the public denunciation against sexist violence and in training young people in awareness programs that he carried out in schools to tell his experience and prevent violence. sexist violence. She hates the fact her daughter’s killer was convicted of manslaughter instead of murder, but she has since seemingly been dedicating every bit of her time to helping others and ensuring they don’t have to go through the same thing she once did.
“Before leaving this world… I want to leave knowing that we have done a very well done job and that we are going to expand these ideas and leave a much better world,” she said. In another interview recently, she candidly expressed, “Fighting is the way to maintain the dignity and memory of my daughter, but also to claim the freedom of all the women of this country to decide to do with their bodies and their lives what they want without any man ruling over them and putting an end to them. Raping or killing them. I just want what happened to my daughter to not happen to anyone else.”
Where is Asun Casasola Now?
Since Asun lost her daughter, she and her son Javier have honestly only been surviving because the loss and the grief doesn’t really go away. They’ve gotten used to it, and she is now particularly dedicating every bit of her free time to social activism against gender violence and being a symbol against sexual violence, but it still does hurt. “I have been suffering… but I prefer to be Nagore’s mother than that of a murderer,” she once said. “Although there was a moment when I thought about what mother she wanted to be, because I imagine that his mother will have another life… I still think that I want to be Nagore’s mother because being a murderer’s mother has to be horrible.”
Asun also stated, “With all the time that has passed, I believe that forgiveness will never come. I don’t want to see him or meet with him, but I would like him to send me a letter or telegram in which he tells me: ‘I’m sorry for what I did to your daughter’ and to be able to see how those words make me feel. I don’t know if he would accept his forgiveness, but at least he could tell the world if he has been of any use to me or not.” Yet until that time comes, she seems relatively content to continue residing in Irún, Spain, alongside her remaining family, from where she continues to do her activism work in the hopes of making Nagore proud.
Read More: Nagore Laffage: What Happened to Her? How Did She Die?
