In the early morning hours of Thursday, October 12, with some uncertainty and caution, families, friends, and neighborsarrived one by one to the location known as “the Arch of the Seven Jaguars,” in the municipality of Chicomuselo, Chiapas. The objective was to march in protest toward the municipal government building.
Days before, a call out had been circulated for a “march for unity, justice, and peace,” signed by the Unidad de Pueblos, a group “made up of ejido commissioners for social peace in Chicomuselo.” The organizers called on the people to break the silence and peacefully march, as an act of Indigenous and campesino resistance in Mexico and Latin America.
In recent months, in the Mexico-Guatemala border region, clashes between the Sinaloa Cartel and the Jalisco New Generation Cartel have worsened the climate of violence. The two cartels have been fighting for territorial control in the region. These criminal groups have sown fear in towns like Pacayalito, in the municipality of Motozintla, as well as in the ejido Tres Maravillas, and in Chicomuselo, causing forced displacement and curfews.
Due to the escalating violence, the organized ejido commissioners called on “all sectors of society to peacefully unite as people and as municipality to call for government intervention.”
They even alluded to the Mexican president’s signature slogan: “No one above or beneath the law,” demanding him to act accordingly. “Because the people are tired of these groups seeking to control our territory, imposing themselves with total impunity,” declared the Indigenous people.
Those organizing the protest reiterated that impunity has led to increased assassinations, disappearances, forced displacement, threats, intimidations, among other things. “The families of the disappeared are searching for their loved ones. The authorities are not involved in the search,” said one of the protestors who, for security reasons, omitted their name.
Regardless of the fear, along with uncertainty caused by rumors “that the protest was to support one of the two cartels, the Sinaloa cartel, the people took to the streets to protest all groups provoking violence in our territories, and so that President Obrador listens to us,” added one protestor.
In Chicomuselo, even before the recent intensification of violence, community members had already denounced the presence of the narco-paramilitary group, MAIZ, linked to the Sinaloa Cartel. “They wanted to displace the market vendors so as to impose their own people,” said an interviewee for Avispa Midia via telephone.
Different sectors of society all mobilized together, including the teacher’s union, transport workers, healthcare workers, athletes, vendors, members of social organizations, community authorities, and ranchers.
At the end of the march, the organizers estimated at least 10,000 people were present. Arriving to the central plaza of the community, the protestors chanted slogans like, “The united people will never be defeated! The silent people will never be heard,” ending the protest in relative calm.
Photo-U.S. Bureau of Investigation instructors train Puebla state police officers
In a communique, the human rights organization Front Line Defenders denounced ongoing attacks against Nahua land defenders in the municipality of Juan C. Bonilla, Puebla, articulated together in the organization, Pueblos Unidos de la Region Cholulteca y de losVolcanes (United Peoples of the Cholulteca and Volcano Region).
The organization is made up of 20 Nahua communities from the valley of Puebla who have historically struggled in defense of human rights and against the dispossession caused by extractive projects in their territories.
The most recent attack occurred on October 2, 2023, in San Lucas Nextetelco, when Indigenous Nahuas were repressed during a protest against the construction of a police facility in the community.
Without consultation, the construction of the police facility was given the green light by the state of Puebla on September 5. The facility’s construction is excepted to be finished in December of this year, and the baseline cost is 8 million pesos(over 440k dollars).
The construction of the police facility is taking place in the context of “a concerning rise in militarization and growing construction of police facilities and military barracks in communities throughout the country, particularly where there are processes of resistance and opposition to megaprojects, and where there has been no previous, free, or informedconsultation,” alerted the organization.
On October 2, 2023, people presenting themselves as employees of Decosa, the company with the contract to construct the police facility, arrived to the community of San Lucas Nextetelco. The workers left the area after members of the community organized an assembly as an act of opposition, where they decided collectively to reject the construction of the police facility.
Later that day, at 4pm, the same workers returned to the community of San Lucas Nextetelco, this time with an excavatorand protected by Puebla State Police. They tore down the fence and began to work.
In response, community members alerted the rest of the community, who joined the protest seeking to stop the construction of the police facility. After that, the municipal government of Juan C. Bonilla mobilized a group of individuals in the area who have been previously identified in the community as “violent actors,” said Front Line Defenders.
The group began to physically threaten community members, including youth and elders, who were peacefully protesting. More community members arrived to the protest, facing off with police. Eventually, due to the protest, the violent group along with the state police left the area. To make clear their rejection of the police facility, and to denounce the repression, the community blockaded the federal highway at San Lucas Nextetelco for around 6 hours.
Other Attacks
Previous attacks have been documented against the organization. On June 30, 2023, Alejandro Torres Chocolatl was detained by state agents of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the State of Puebla (FGE). The human rights defender was freed without the FGE presenting him at a hearing and formalizing his release.
On November 28, 2022, different national and international organizations denounced the attacks, threats, repeated break-ins, acts of surveillance, intimidation, and harassment carried out throughout 2022 against the lawyer and human rights defender of the FPDTA-MPT, Juan Carlos Flores Solís.
On June 10, 2021, the Puebla State Police carried out an operation with approximately 100 policemen and 60 police vehicles interrupting and intimidating a peaceful protest in Santa María Zacatepec. During the operation, the human rights defender and community media worker, Alejandro Torres Chocolatl, was threatened by state police. Upon seeing him taking photos, the police forcefully took his cell phone and threw him to the ground.
On December 3, 2019, an international mission of observation to the Nahua community of Santa María Zacatepec, Juan C. Bonilla, Puebla, was organized by national and international organizations. There, a series of violations were documented of individual and collective human rights of the Zacatepec community.
On January 24, 2020, the human rights defender and member of the FPDTA-MPT, Miguel López Vega, was detained by agents of the Public Prosecutor’s Office of the State of Puebla as he was leaving governmental offices in Puebla.
It wasn’t until March 16, 2023, that two of the three charges against him were dropped, following advancements in hislegal process. The human rights defender is awaiting a date for the final hearing in order to have all charges dropped.
The organization Front Line Defenders has urged authorities to take the necessary measures to guarantee the safety of human rights defenders and the Nahua communities.
Photo from the archive. Migrants wait outside a bus station. By: Santiago Navarro F
Shelters and civil society organizations that serve and accompany migrants in need of international protectiondenounced the current humanitarian crisis in Mexico City as “a consequence of restrictive and unsustainableimmigration policies.”
For the past two years, organizations and shelters have been raising the alarm about the potential consequences of changes to United States immigration policies in collaboration with the Mexican government. They argue that “Mexico has consolidated itself as the external border of the United States, signing agreements behind closed doors which have had serious effects on the human rights of migrants in Mexican territory. As a result of these agreements, thousands of people have been trapped immobilized with irregular immigration status in a growing number of cities across the country.”
Mexico City has become a strategic transit point and a destination for thousands of migrants. This has resulted in the overcrowding of civil society shelters and spaces, which for the past year have been serving up to 900% of their capacity. “We insist, the current humanitarian crisis in Mexico City is the responsibility of the authorities, and not of the migrants and those seeking protection.”
The organizations point out that more and more migrants are arriving to Mexico City, and they are staying for longer periods of time, or even indefinitely. This has transformed the capital city into a destination and “it merits comprehensive public policies of attention and integration.”
The organizations denounce that policies of restrictive contention have focused on persecution and detention of migrants, and in hindering the regularization of their migratory status. These policies generate conditions of greater risk and vulnerability for migrants, like what has happened in the last few years with multiple highway accidents involving migrants.
These policies have even included illegal actions like preventing, via private transport companies, certain people without documents from buying a plane or bus ticket within national territory.
These policies have forced people to seek out alternative means of travel including by train or by semitruck, which are controlled by organized crime networks “that operate with the consent and even participation of the authorities.”
The organizations point out that “there has been a willingness to dialogue with the authorities of Mexico City.” However, they consider that “the meetings are only a simulation, where minimal support is given, continuing to leave civil society with the responsibility.”
Furthermore, the different organizations have recorded situations of maltreatment and abuse, such as illegal fees being applied in spaces provided by authorities. “All this has resulted in people being forced to live in the streets in front of shelters, government institutions, churches, hospitals, and bus terminals. This situation puts migrants at greater risk, as families with children and adolescents are exposed to dangers like child tracking,” they say.
This situation “causes tension with local communities and leads to discrimination and xenophobia toward migrants.”
The organizations are demanding transparency and accountability related to agreements reached between Mexico and the United States. Furthermore, they are demanding adequate and integral programs to regularize the immigration status of migrants, along with attention to specific needs like pathways for migrants to access permanent residency.
The organizations and shelters that signed the communique are: Casa de Acogida, Formación y Empoderamiento para Mujeres y sus Familias Migrantes (Cafemin), Casa Tochan, Casa Peñas, Albergue Constitución, Asociación de Nicaragüenses en México, Apoyo a Migrantes Venezolanos, A.C., Colectivo Ustedes Somos Nosotros, Fundación Humano y Libre, Plataforma Todos Somos Venezuela, Programa Casa Refugiados, Programa de Asuntos Migratorios de la Universidad Iberoamericana Ciudad de México.
Relatives of the disappeared have been searching throughout the country, without government help, since the increase in violence during Calderón’s six-year term in office. Photo: Santiago Navarro F.
Two years ago, violence, disappearances, displacements and recruitment of people due to the territorial dispute between two Mexican cartels completely disrupted the lives of different communities in Chiapas.
One of the groups identified as the Sinaloa Cartel has had a presence in this entity since the late 1980s, as Joaquín Guzmán Loera, alias “El Chapo,” had a lot of influence, as well as possession of properties.
“Local organized crime groups were linked to this larger group, we must remember that they are networks and function as cells that reproduce themselves,” explains for Avispa Mídia, Carla Zamora Lomelí, researcher of the Socio-environmental Studies and Territorial Management group at El Colegio de la Frontera Sur (Ecosur).
In 2018, in elections for president, governor and mayors, criminal violence worsened in southern Mexico. “It may seem coincidental, but it is not so much,” says the researcher, as the arrival of Morena coincided with the incursion of the Jalisco Cartel – New Generation (CJNG).
The cartels began to contest the municipalities and the violence was replicated in June 2021 in the elections of 118 mayors and local legislators. In municipalities such as Pantelhó and Frontera Comalapa there were no security guarantees even for the workers of the electoral bodies, a municipal council was appointed and the violence started to become more visible.
Members of Las Abejas de Acteal demand justice for the murder of Simón Pedro.
On July 5 of the same election year, Simón Pedro Pérez López, human rights defender and member of Las Abejas de Acteal was murdered in front of his son and father in the public market of Simojovel.
In the report “Blessed are those who work for justice…”, the Fray Bartolomé de Las Casas Human Rights Center (Frayba) reports that before the crime, Simón Pedro denounced to the the Secretary of Government the situation of violence in Pantelhó, Simojovel and Chenalhó due to the siege by armed groups linked to organized crime.
Three days later, on July 8 (2021) in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Gilberto Rivera Maravilla, alias “El Junior” or “Jr.,” son of Gilberto Rivera Amarillas, “El Tío Gil,” operator of the Sinaloa Cartel in Chiapas, was murdered.
Since then, the struggle of criminal groups has expanded into other territories. From the southern border it extended to the Sierra; then to the central, northern and highlands of Chiapas, although linked to local criminal groups, such as Los Herrera in Pantelho or “El Caracol” in Chamula, in the highlands, which are linked to or have alliances with groups of greater reach.
Los Herrera are linked to the Sinaloa Cartel, but after the murder of Jr. they were stripped of control of Pantelhó by an armed group calling itself “El Machete,” which presented itself in the media as self-defense, posing with high-powered weapons.
Members of the criminal group “Los Ciriles” captured in a video posted on social networks. July 7, Pantelhó, Chiapas.
A month later, in August 2021, the Chiapas Indigenous Justice Prosecutor, Gregorio Pérez Gómez, who was investigating violence between Los Herrera and El Machete, was assassinated in San Cristóbal de Las Casas.
Fleeing between bullets
Although violence is widespread, the dispute between the Sinaloa and Jalisco Nueva Generación cartels has particularly changed the daily life of towns in the Sierra Madre de Chiapas, bordering Guatemala, such as Frontera Comalapa, Chicomuselo, Motozintla, Siltepec, Amatenango de la Frontera, Mazapa de Madero, La Grandeza and El Porvenir.
The presence of cartels in these municipalities is related to the flow of migrating people. For years, this population fallen victim to various crimes ranging from sexual violence, robberies, kidnappings, human trafficking and disappearances.
Between 2018 and 2023, the State Attorney General’s Office registered 201 investigative files for disappearance of people by individuals, of which 165 are in process, 22 without criminal action, 11 without prosecution and accumulated three more.
On the other hand, the National Registry of Disappeared and Missing Persons in the same period reports 810 cases in five municipalities: 144 in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, 41 in San Cristóbal de las Casas, 108 in Tapachula, 104 in Comitán and 55 in Frontera Comalapa.
In 2021, thousands of people in the Highlands region of Chiapas were forcibly displaced from their communities due to violence by armed civilian groups. Photo: Frayba
However, according to the Mothers in Resistance Collective, Melel Xojobal, Mesoamerican Voices and Frayba, there are no real official figures on disappearances, both of people in transit and of residents.
Disappearances began to be reported more strongly after the confrontations in May 2023, when thousands of people fled Frontera Comalapa and Chicomuselo in fear of being recruited, disappeared or killed.
In a complex task, Frayba was able to count the displacement of 2,000 people from Frontera Comalapa from 2021 to 2022, a figure that increased this year when another 3,500 inhabitants also fled.
“The Council (State Council for Integral Attention to Internal Displacement of the State of Chiapas), which legally must attend to this situation of displacement, does not do much more than bring food boxes, but in recent months it has not been seen that they have been acting in response to this situation. People go by their own means to look for their family networks, because there is no state action,” explains Lomelí.
Entrapment and recruitment
In the localities where criminals converge, there is also an increase in crimes such as extortion and extortion charges, which are not yet seen in other areas of the state, and which involve young people in their networks.
In the recent report “Childhood in the face of criminal violence” the civil association Melel Xojobal emphasizes the recruitment of adolescents between 12 and 14 years of age who live in the areas where the cartels operate.
These groups assign the adolescents tasks such as running errands, selling and transporting drugs, recruiting other young people, surveillance, coyotaje, confrontations with rivals, gangs or contract killings.
In the case of women, they work as cleaners, waitresses in bars or canteens, or are victims of sexual exploitation. “It is common for children and adolescents who are part of these groups to be used for high-risk activities that endanger their lives and integrity or that could lead to their arrest,” says Jennifer Haza, director of the organization Melel Xojobal.
He explains that the current phenomenon is reminiscent of the age-old process of enganche, in which farmers deceived workers by generating debts in order to force them to work in exploitative conditions.
In 2021, the Network for the Rights of Children (Redim) estimated that in San Cristóbal de las Casas alone 2,507 children and adolescents are at risk of falling into the hands of delinquents, while nationally the figure is 64,473.
Protest in Nueva Palestina due to organized crime violence and failure of authorities to act. 2023.
New routes
The disputed territories are mainly part of at least three corridors created for the trafficking of people, drugs and arms, says researcher Lomelí. The best known is the Pacific corridor, along the coast and the main route for migrants.
The second corridor covers the highlands and highlands, and the third is in the northern zone and connects with the jungle. All three intersect in the Metropolitan or Central zone of the state.
Among the most recent complaints is that of community members of the Nueva Palestina community, located in the Selva zone, who have been affected by the blockades and surveillance carried out by the cartels at crossroads and highways.
Gray area
One month after the violence that provoked displacements and disappearances in Frontera Comalapa and Chicomuselo, on June 22, 2023, the singer Nayeli Cyrene Cinco Martínez was kidnapped by an armed group that entered her home in Tuxtla Gutiérrez.
Five days later, hooded people with long guns blocked the Ocozocoautla-Tuxtla Gutiérrez highway to intercept the bus where 33 workers from the Secretariat of Security and Citizen Protection were traveling.
Only the 16 men on board were kidnapped as a bargaining chip to obtain the release of Nayeli Cinco. In videos disseminated on social networks, hooded men also called for the termination of three public officials of the same department.
The 16 officials and the woman, who was close to a CJNG leader, were released. “It is a sign that there is what in political science is called a gray zone: a non-public area where negotiations take place,” explained Lomelí.
In this case, the government demonstrated that it had strategies to deal with the problem. However, “curiously,” when violent events occur, the security forces are often not present in the areas, as was the case a few days ago when the Sinaloa Cartel paraded and was received by the inhabitants of Chamic, Frontera Comalapa.
When questioned about the context of the Sierra zone of Chiapas, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador minimized the problem with the argument that it is not a widespread situation, but insisted on reinforcing security with a greater presence of military personnel from the National Guard.
“But it seems like they are warned, it’s like a political game,” emphasizes the researcher, since militarization has become media containment. Meanwhile, governments continue to bet on the lack of collective memory.
Faces This is the first of a series of five texts that Avispa Mídia will publish under the title Chiapas: Disappearing on Mexico’s Southern Border. The following publications will tell the story of people who have disappeared in recent years in Chiapas in the context of the dispute for territory between cartels, and the struggle of their families to know the truth.
Cover image: Migrant families in front of the bus station in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas
Twelve migrants were killed last week in different tragic events, but these events did not take place by chance. According to human rights defenders, the situation has been triggered by the violent and inhumane immigration policies being implemented by the Mexican state.
On Thursday, September 28, a truck overturned at kilometer 125 on the Malpaso-La Herradura highway in Chiapas. Crowded in the vehicle were 52 migrants, 2 of whom died, and 27 others injured. The injured were sent for medical attention in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, 6 of them were minors.
Twenty-four of the 27 injured were from Guatemala, one from Ecuador, one from Venezuela, and another of unknown nationality.
During the early morning hours of October 1, a cargo vehicle carrying 27 Cuban migrants was involved in a crash killing 10 women. The accident occurred at kilometer 134 of the Pijijiapan-Tonalá highway in Chiapas, where events like this have become recurrent.
The remaining 17 people were severely injured: 16 of them taken to a hospital in Pijijiapan, and the other to a hospital in Huixtla. However, the different institutions refused to provide information regarding the condition of the hospitalized.
“The state must carry out prompt, exhaustive, and impartial investigations of those responsible for, and the causes of, this accident. It must provide attention to the victims and their family members,” announced the Colectivo de Monitoreo Frontera Sur.
Made up of different organizations with a presence in Chiapas, the collective reiterates that these events are not isolated, but are the direct consequence of policies that restrict, contain, and detain migratory flows.
“It is worrying how these policies generate a context of violence, precarity, and risk for thousands of people who for different reasons have had to leave their countries,” signaled the collective. They are forced to resort to unsafe and clandestine routes, exposing themselves to abuse, extorsion, and death.
The collective asked for the identification and delivery of the bodies to their families, as well as payment for their transfer and burial, “so that the families are fully compensated for the damage done.”
The human rights defenders pertaining to the collective demand justice. They recalled another accident 2 years ago on the Corzo-Tuxtla highway, where 55 people died and 114 were injured. The families never received reparations for the damage.
Containment Expands in Chiapas
On September 26, the National Institute of Migration (INM) announced that their commissioner, Francisco Garduño Yáñez, “depressurized” Tapachula, Chiapas, by removing 8,152 people who were waiting for their turn at the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance (COMAR).
The migrants were transferred in 189 buses and 73 vans to Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Huixtla, San Cristóbal, and Palenque, Chiapas; along with Villa Hermosa, Tabasco, and Acayucan, Veracruz.
These transfers are not something new, they began just after the fire at the migrant processing station of the National Institute of Migration in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua. “The transfers are made from the entry bridge in Suchiate to Tuxtla and recently to other states of the republic,” explains Karen Martínez of Jesuit Refugee Services.
“Oaxaca is another state that has been overwhelmed because the buses are also taking migrants there. However, the National Institute of Migration does not provide clear information, nor do they indicate the total number of people who have been transferred. There is no control over the process,” said Martínez.
Organizations pertaining to the Colectivo de Monitoreo Frontera Sur have documented the exit of at least 10 buses daily from Suchiate and Tapachula traveling each with around 40 migrants on board.
In testimonies of migrants and asylum seekers who have arrived to Tuxtla Gutiérrez in this manner, they explain that the transfer is provided in exchange for signing documents in which the migrants lose their rights to legalize their migration status or access to international protections.
Migrant families in front of the bus station in Tuxtla Gutiérrez.
If people try to travel directly from Tuxtla Gutiérrez to Mexico City, they are intercepted in one of the five checkpoints between Chiapas and Veracruz where even the Attorney General’s Office is involved. These migrants are returned to the capital of Chiapas.
Yannet Gil Ardon, founder of the shelter “Una ayuda para ti mujer migrante” explained that the people in transit who are detained in northern Mexico are also being transferred to Tuxtla Gutiérrez in Chiapas: “The INM practically throws them at the bus terminals, taking away or destroying their official documents.”
“The most prevalent nationality amongst the migrants is Venezuelan, and regularly they are entire families,” explained the human rights defender to Avispa Midia. Furthermore, she mentioned that the cases of missing persons have increased, “certain people arrive at the bus terminals to offer help to migrants, then they take them away and nothing else is ever known of them.”
Increasing Numbers
Following the fire at the migrant station in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, in which 40 people were killed, the National Institute of Migration’s dynamic has changed, but only in a superficial way. They announced the closure of more than 30 provisional migrant stations due to a review from the National Commission of Human Rights (CNDH) related to the conditions of the facilities.
The study was carried out without considering the principle victims of the human rights violations in those spaces, which for years have been documented by journalists and human rights defenders.
Since July, the statistics provided by the Unit for Migration Policy, Registry, and Identity of Persons (UPMRIP), linked to the Secretariat of the Interior (SEGOB), have not been updated. But as of the month of July, they reported the “illegal entry” of 317,334 people: 93,732 women and 223,602 men.
Migrant families in front of the bus station in Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Chiapas.
A total of 140,671 of the migrants are from South America, far exceeding Central America with 102,106 entries. With 87,063 entries, Venezuela is the nationality with more reported “illegal” migration, followed by Honduras with 50,655, Guatemala with 35,426, and Ecuador with 30,252.
The report also mentions that 117,076 people were detained in Chiapas during the first half of the year, with the highest number detained in Tapachula (58,447), Suchiate (11,541), Huixtla (11,223), Arriaga (8,859), Huehuetán (7,151), and Palenque (4,718).
Meanwhile, the Mexican Commission of Help to Refugees published numbers up until August, where they registered 99,881 applicants, 33,127 more than during the same time period in 2022. Currently, Haiti, Honduras, Cuba, El Salvador, Venezuela, Guatemala, Brazil, and Chile top the list.
Regardless, the numbers do not show the reality of how many migrants are waiting to be attended to in the different municipalities of Chiapas. Some testimonies explain how they can’t even make an appointment with the digital platform, since the geolocation asks them to be in the north of the country, where, no matter how many attempts they make, they cannot reach.
Cover photo: More than 70% of the killings of land and environmental defenders in 2022 occurred in only three countries: Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico. Felipe Luna/Global Witness
Latin America continues being the most lethal region for land and environmental defenders, alerts the human rights organization, Global Witness. According to research carried out by the organization in 18 countries in different parts of the world, at least 177 defenders have lost their lives in 2022, 88% of the assassinations occurring in Latin America.
More than a third, 36%, of the assassinated defenders were Indigenous, and 7% Afro-descendants. More than a fifth, 22%, were small scale farmers. All of them depended on their lands and natural resources to live.
Global Witness has documented the violence and assassinations against land defenders since 2012. “The world has radically changed since we began this work in 2012. What remains immutable is the persistence of the assassinations,” explains the organization in the report.
Since 2012, Global Witness took note of 1,910 assassinations, with 70%, or 1,335 assassinations occurring in Latin America. Furthermore, the organization registered that, of the 1,910 assassinations, 1,390 took place between the approval of the Paris Climate Accords, on December 12, 2015, and December 31, 2022.
The 2022 figures are slightly lower compared to 2021, when 200 people were assassinated. However, the situation has not improved substantially, alerts the organization. “The worsening of the climate crisis and growing demand for agricultural products, fuels, and minerals, will only intensify the pressure exercised upon the environment, and on those who risk their lives to defend it. In addition, non-lethal strategies are increasingly being used to silence defenders, such as criminalization, digital harassment and attacks.”
Year after year, the majority of assassinations are concentrated in the same countries. More than 70% of the cases—125 assassinations of the total 177—occurred in three countries: Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico.
Colombia leads the world ranking with 60 assassinations. This number is almost double the killings that took place in 2021, when 33 defenders were killed. Indigenous peoples and Afro-descendent communities, who usually engage in small scale farming and defense of the environment, “have been hit hard.”
In Brazil, 34 defenders have lost their lives, compared to 26 in 2021. “The Brazilian defenders had to face unrelenting hostility from the government of the then president, Jair Bolsonaro, whose politics exposed the Amazon to exploitation and destruction, weakening environmental institutions, and inciting illegal invasions of Indigenous lands,” says the document.
Illegal mining exploitation in Indigenous Yanomami territory in Brazil. 2023. Photo: Alan Chaves
Mexico, the country with the most assassinations in 2021, registered a drop, from 54 homicides in 2021 to 31 in 2022. At least 16 of the people assassinated were Indigenous, while four of them were lawyers. “Nevertheless, the general situation in Mexico remained alarming for land and environmental defenders, and non-lethal aggressions (among them intimidation, threats, forced displacement, and criminalization) continued to greatly hinder their work,” the organization notes.
In Honduras, 14 assassinations were registered in 2022, the highest number defenders assassinated per capita in the world. “Xiomara Castro, the first female president of Honduras, has pledged to protect defenders. However, early trends in 2023 point to the persistence of generalized violence, as killings and non-fatal assaults have been reported throughout the country,” the organization explains.
Julia Francisco Martínez, widow of human rights defender, Francisco Martínez Márquez, member of the group in defense of Indigenous rights MILPAH, who was found murdered in 2015. Giles Clarke/Global Witness
The organization highlights that the numbers only count known killings, given that underreporting is a generalized problem. “Unfortunately, many more lives have been lost that are not included in our data.”
