Afro-Descendant & Indigenous: News & Updates

On the same day of the forced disappearance of Max Castillo (cf our letter 15 APR 2025), the brother of the community council president of Punta Piedra (a Garífuna community along the Atlantic coast in Colón Department), another Garífuna community, El Triunfo de la Cruz (Atlántida Department) faced an incursion. On April 12, two buses carrying armed individuals—allegedly hired to “clear” land—arrived in the community. Fortunately, residents were successful in their resistance and turned them away. But then on April 14, community leaders of El Triunfo de la Cruz received voice messages containing direct threats—as did prominent Garífuna leader Miriam Miranda. The threats came from an individual claiming to be a bodyguard for an investor tied to a tourism complex illegally situated within Garífuna territory—land that the Inter-American Court of Human Rights has ruled must be restored to the community.  

These attacks follow a well-documented pattern of repression that strategically coincides with Garífuna mobilizations and symbolic actions—such as the recent symbolic funeral for the CIANCSI (Intersectoral Commission for the Compliance with International Sentences), held to protest the State's failure to implement international rulings in their favor. The Black Fraternal Organization (OFRANEH) has rightfully described this as a synchronized cycle of terror aimed at silencing community demands and halting the recovery of ancestral lands. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has already warned that this violence will persist as long as the Honduran State refuses to uphold international legal mandates.

The Garífuna, an Afro-Indigenous people with a profound historical and cultural presence in Honduras, continue to be targeted for defending their rights to territory, culture, and life. Despite legal victories, the Honduran government has failed to implement structural reforms or offer protection for these communities.

On April 10, the Garífuna community, which lives primarily along the Atlantic coast, led mobilization in the nation’s capial,  Tegucigalpa. They demanded that the Honduran government comply with binding rulings issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (2015, 2023)  in favor of three Garífuna communities in Colón (Punta Piedra) and Atlántida (Triunfo de la Cruz, San Juan). 

Barely two days later, in the early morning hours of April 12, Max Gil Castillo Mejía, brother of the president of the community council of Punta Piedra was kidnapped from his home in San Pedro Sula (Cortés Department) by armed individuals who identified themselves as police officers. Just two days later, prominent Garífuna leader Miriam Miranda and other members of the Garífuna community of El Triunfo de la Cruz received threats.

Silencing Indigenous and Afro-descendant voices through fear and violence is a violation not only of human dignity but of binding international commitments.  The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has already warned that this violence will persist as long as the Honduran State refuses to uphold international legal mandates. IRTF calls on the government of Honduras to implement the rulings of the Inter-American Court to ensure that justice, reparations, and peace are no longer deferred for the Garífuna people.

The harms caused by metallic mining are well-known to the communities of Panzos, Livingston, and El Estor in the Maya Q’eqchi’ region of the Sierra Santa Cruz mountain range. For sixty years, they have been exposed to the pollution caused by the El Fénix nickel mine in El Estor. It was finally in December 2023 when the Inter-American Court of Human Rights ruled that the government of Guatemala is responsible for human rights violations (threats, assaults, killings) and ordered reparation measures.  The following year, Hudbay Minerals Inc. (which owned the El Fénix mine from 2008 to 2011) resolved a decade-long lawsuit brought by victims’ families in a court in Toronto, Canada involving assassination and sexual assault.

When Maya Q’eqchi’ communities learned that Canada-based CAN (Central America Nickel) was seeking to expand mining, they mobilized. On April 7, more than 50 communities came out to start a several day blockade of a main highway in protest. Local municipal officials are also opposed to mining expansions.

IRTF echoes the demand of the local Maya Q’eqchi’ communities to: 1) suspend all mining operations in the Santa Cruz region; 2) form a commission to investigate harms against the Q’eqchi’ people and the environment between 2004-2024 resulting from mining operations; 3) devise a plan for reparations for past harms; and 4) implement a consultation process, based on prior and complete information in the Q'eqchi' language (as required by national and international law, the ILO Convention 169) to decide if mining operations will continue into the future.

Indigenous Women for the Conservation, Research, and Use of Natural Resources

Danger to social leaders is real in Oaxaca, the state with the fifth highest number of attacks on human rights defenders and journalists. Sandra Domínguez, an Indigenous Zapotec activist who had denounced Oaxacan government leaders, was disappeared a few months ago.

On February 27, while she was away at an intergenerational human rights workshop, the home of Zapotec defender Silvia Pérez Yescas was burgaled and her computer equipment stolen.  She had already been forcibly displaced from her home for more than a year because she fears physical assault should she return. As the founder of Indigenous Women for the Conservation, Research, and Use of Natural Resources (CIARENA, AC), she and others with CIARENA decided to close the office temporarily out of safety concerns.

We are urging that top officials in Oaxaca request that the National Mechanism for Women Human Rights Defenders strengthen protection measures and guarantee the safety of the members of CIARENA.

Indigenous rights defenders and other social leaders are at great risk in northern Cauca Department, where illegal armed groups battle for territory and control of land for illicit crops.

On March 1, armed men on a motorcycle in Toribío, Cauca, shot Édgar Tumiñá Gembuel nine times in the head. He was taken to a municipal health center but died due to the severity of his injuries.

Édgar Tumiñá, age 48, was a recognized leader of the Nasa people of northern Cauca. A member of the Indigenous Guard (Kiwe Thegnas), he taught children how to avoid being recruited into armed groups, how to provide first aid to injured persons, and how to shelter during gunfire. Illegal armed groups have a strong presence in Toribío, growing marijuana and coca (for cocaine production) on the reservation of the Nasa people. Since February, thousands of people have been displaced or forcibly confined because of conflicts between the armed groups.  Furthermore, they attempt to recruit the Indigenous children into their ranks.

The brother of Édgar Tumiñá Gembuel was assassinated in 2014. Édgar Tumiñá Gembuel himself had received threats and already survived other assassination attempts. According to the Association of Indigenous Councils of Northern Cauca (ACIN), he was being targeted by the Dagoberto Ramos Front (a dissident group that splintered from the FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia).  

For many years, the Afro-Honduran and Garífuna residents of Diamond Rock (Bay Islands) have been victims of harassment, threats, and persecution, which has generated a climate of fear and uncertainty in the community. At the root of the controversy is ancestral land of the residents of Diamond Rock, which was legally granted to them in 1965. For the past twenty years, the powerful Cooper-McNab family has been illegally occupying land belonging to the McLaughlin family, in violation of their land and cultural rights. The McLaughlin family, with support from other residents of Diamond Rock, has repeatedly filed complaints against the Cooper-McNab family for the crime of land usurpation. This year, in an exercise of their right to self-determination, the McLaughlin family began the process of  reoccupying their ancestral territory. On January 5, they decided to lift the gates, remove the wooden fence, clear the entrance and recover their property.

On January 28, the Public Prosecutor’s Office filed a prosecutorial request seeking arrest warrants and judicial detention orders against 13 residents of Diamond Rock, including members of the McLaughlin family.  They are being accused of arson, robbery with violence, and property damage within the very ancestral land of the McLaughlin family. This misuse of the powers of the Public Prosecutor is an abuse of criminal law. 

René Alfonso Garavito is a valued community member of the Indigenous Makaguan tribe in Arauca Department. He juggles being a a father of three, a university student (studying public administration), and an active member of the Indigenous Guard on his people’s reservation (Reserve Cusay la Colorada).

Tragically, while he was commuting between two towns on September 20, three armed men apprehended him, held him at gunpoint, tied him up and took him away while his 11-year-old nephew watched. His relatives, who suspect he is being held by the National Liberation Army (ELN),  are experiencing much distress and anguish; his nephew now has routine nightmares after watching the kidnapping.

IRTF has joined an international call to prioritize a thorough investigation into the kidnapping of René Alfonso Garavito, publish the results, and bring those responsible to justice. With his family, we pray that he is released and returned unharmed.

Luis Carlos Coicué serves as governor of the Nasa Reservation Jerusalén San Luis Alto Picudito in Villagarzón (Putumayo Department), which has consistently denounced violence committed by all armed actors—guerrillas, paramilitaries and the Colombian National Army alike. Despite this, Nasa leaders have been falsely attacked on social networks, unfoundedly accused of protecting “some border commandos.” This slander has placed leaders like Luis Carlos Coicué at particular risk.

The level of danger was heightened in March when an armed man with his face covered delivered a written warning. The unsigned document, which named leaders and community members from the reservation, stated: “Every collaborator becomes a military objective of our block.”  The notice came during a period of weeks when paramilitary organizations were occupying schools and churches; community residents were confined due to minefields and other unexploded ordnance. Because of imminent threats, community members held an assembly for 12 days straight as a strategy to safeguard their reservation.

When Governor Coicué and his wife received specific death threats in September (“tell your husband to stop causing problems or we’ll blow your head off”), the National Protection Unit assessed the risk to Luis Carlos Coicué as “extraordinary,” but they only offered him a cell phone and armored vest as protective measures.