[one of the girls] by the hair, and held a gun to her waist. Two other individuals seized [the second girl] by the hand. [And], as they led them away, the [men] said they were going to kill them; when [the second girl] started to cry, the men placed a gun in her mouth to keep her quiet.” Fortunately, one of the girls managed to escape, calling her paternal grandmother, who arrived and began screaming at the attackers to let them go. As a result, the captors let the girls go and the grandmother took them away from the place; d) on November 9, 2012, in the early hours of the morning, Sandra Lorena Ramos found a man inside her house. “This [man] stared at her and left without saying or doing anything”, and e) in response to these events, Sandra Lorena Ramos decided to move to another city with her daughters. 4. The representatives requested that the Court order provisional measures, “given the imminent risk of irreparable damage, both to Sandra Lorena Ramos Cárcamo, and to her minor daughters, due to the actions directly perpetrated against the victims and because, in accordance [with] the aforementioned Judgment, the compensation payments are due to be made in February 2013.” They also requested that the Court: a) order provisional measures in favor of Sandra Lorena Ramos Cárcamo and her three minor daughters, and b) require the State of Honduras to conduct a thorough, impartial and effective investigation into the facts reported. 5. The note of January 23, 2013, in which the Secretariat of the Court, following the instructions of the President and pursuant to Article 27(5) of the Rules, asked the State to submit its observations to the request for provisional measures, together with any other documents considered pertinent, no later than February 1, 2013. 6. In a brief submitted on February 4, 2013 the State presented its observations to the request for provisional measures. In said brief, the State explained that the Attorney General’s Office would be contacting Sandra Lorena Ramos in order to urge her to file the respective complaint with the Public Prosecutor’s Office, given that the alleged crimes require a specific procedure. Likewise, it would demand an effective investigation into the facts denounced by the representatives. In addition, the State undertook to send a communication to the Secretariat of Security of Honduras, for the purpose of “considering the adoption of some level of protection in favor of Mrs. Sandra Lorena Ramos and her daughters, until the situation of risk affecting them disappears.” CONSIDERING THAT: 1. Honduras has been a State Party to the American Convention on Human Rights since September 8, 1977 and, pursuant to Article 62 thereof, recognized the Court’s contentious jurisdiction on September 9, 1981. 2. Article 63(2) of the American Convention provides that, “[i]n cases of extreme gravity and urgency, and when necessary to avoid irreparable damage to persons, the Court shall adopt such provisional measures as it deems pertinent in matters it has under consideration. With respect to a case not yet submitted to the Court, it may act at the request of the Commission.” 3. Article 27 of the Rules of Procedure of the Court establishes that: 2