NEW YORK (VINnews) — A young Israeli woman was killed in Brazil on Monday night after falling in Rio de Janeiro while trying to escape thieves, according to a report in Brazilian media outlets.
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The publication O Dia identified the woman as Alma Bohadana, a 24-year-old from Kibbutz Yasur in Israel, and reported that she had been walking with her boyfriend when the two saw a motorcycle approach and ran away, thinking they were going to be robbed.
Bohadana then jumped over a wall, thinking that it was a narrow parapet. Instead, she fell some 49 feet (15 meters) to her death.
The boyfriend, identified by local media as Dan Hen, was questioned by police three times, according to O Dia. He reportedly gave conflicting stories, once stating that a man on a motorcycle had approached them and then claiming that a car had driven towards them menacingly.
According to Brazilian media sources, Bohadana had been in Rio for about 10 days after spending three months in Bahia. Employees at the hostel where she stayed in Bohadana said that she had been friendly and loved by everyone.
“She was a beautiful soul, an artist, always smiling, radiant, talkative, very intelligent,” one employee said. “She had learned to samba and shared a lot of her Israeli culture with me. Everyone in the hostel loved her. She will stay here forever, with us, in the mandala that she painted with so much love in every detail.”
The Foreign Ministry said its department for Israelis overseas, Israel’s consul general in Brazil Neta Avrahami, and Keren Hayesod representative in Rio de Janeiro Mariano Hirsch were helping the grieving family and dealing with bringing the woman’s body to burial in Israel.