'She had been through so much': Friend's last-minute effort to change gang-rape victim's mind on euthanasia

A friend of the gang-rape victim who died by euthanasia turned up at the Spanish hospital an hour before her death, hoping to convince her to live.

Warning: This article contains distressing content. Noelia Castillo Ramos, 25, died by euthanasia in the Barcelona care facility where she lived on Thursday evening.

She was raped on two occasions, once by her ex-boyfriend and the second time by three boys in 2022, after which she jumped from the fifth-floor window of an apartment building in an attempt to end her own life. The fall left her paralysed from the waist down, and she was suffering severe, chronic and incapacitating pain with no possibility of improvement, according to her medical records.

Noelia requested euthanasia in 2024, but her father blocked the procedure, taking the case all the way to the European Court of Human Rights, where it was rejected earlier this month. Read more: Gang-rape victim dies by euthanasia after two-year legal battle The euthanasia was scheduled for 5pm on Thursday.

An hour before, Carla Rodriguez, who said she was Noelia's best friend, arrived at the residential care hospital in Barcelona and asked to see Noelia, hoping to change her mind. A cordon had been set up to prevent dozens of people who came to protest Noelia's euthanasia from accessing the facility and disrupting the procedure.

Security personnel also denied her friend access. "I wanted to try to convince her to change her mind," Ms Rodriguez tearfully told Spanish outlet Okdiario.

Ms Rodriguez said she and Noelia grew up together and used to be classmates at a local school. They lost touch "when Noelia was transferred to a different care facility".

She learned about Noelia's decision to die in the news and hoped to convince her friend to live by telling her about the "wave of affection and solidarity" on social media, where many commented on Noelia's case. "Noelia has been through so much," Ms Rodriguez said, breaking down in tears.

She left a handwritten letter for Noelia's mother, asking to see her friend and offering support. 'I want to die alone' Noelia had told Spanish TV programme Y Ahora Sonsoles in her only interview that she wanted to be alone at the moment of her death.

"I've told them that family can come to say goodbye, but not when they're about to give me the injection," she said. She also voiced her wish to "die looking pretty, I want to die beautiful.