MEXICO CITY - Friends of a University of British Columbia student killed in Mexico gathered Saturday to celebrate her life in a pair of memorial services thousands of kilometres apart.
Ceremonies honouring Ximena Osegueda were planned in Mexico City and Montreal, where she lived years ago while studying at McGill University.
"It will be a day of celebration in memory of that brilliant smile, that fiery energy, that piercing voice, that friend who was always there," a friend wrote in French on a Facebook page for the Montreal event.
Organizers of the afternoon memorial said they would pay their respects to Osegueda through Brazilian dance, which she practiced and taught. She was also a yoga instructor.
The bodies of Osegueda and her boyfriend Alejandro Santamaria were discovered partially buried on a beach in Huatulco, south of Acapulco, by the woman's relatives.
Both had been stabbed in the neck and set on fire, according to Mexican officials, and were identified through tattoos and moles.
Osegueda's colleagues at UBC have said they expect a memorial will be held in Vancouver as well, but details of the event haven't been announced.
Osegueda was in Mexico gathering material for her PhD when she disappeared while travelling by car to a yoga class.
Relatives contacted police after failing to hear from her following a reported robbery at her home
She is the second Canadian to be killed in Mexico this week.
Robin Wood, 67, of Salt Spring Island, B.C., was killed Tuesday when he stood up to two suspects who tried to rob a friend's home in the town of Melaque, south of Puerto Vallarta.
