Water defender Oquelí Domínguez was killed on June 15, 2023. Others remain at risk as they continue to challenge a mine that threatens their water supply.
CALL ON HONDURAN AUTHORITIES TO BRING THE KILLERS TO JUSTICE AND ENSURE THE SAFETY OF OTHER THREATENED WATER DEFENDERS!
Water defender Oquelí Domínguez was killed in the community of Guapinol (department of Colón, northern Honduras) on June 15, 2023.
His assassination comes five months after the fatal shooting of his brother Aly Dominguez and Jairo Bonilla Ayala.
All three murdered men were involved in a grassroots environmental defence movement that has peacefully organized against an iron ore operation, owned by one of the country’s most powerful families, and its impact on the Guapinol River, their source of water.
Other water defenders in Guapinol and other communities of Tocoa have received death threats because of their efforts that question the legality of the Inversiones Los Pinares mining project in the Carlos Escaleras National Park, a conservation area. They are at grave risk of harm.
Over the last five years, Amnesty International has issued numerous alerts following killings and other attacks in Honduras, which is one of the deadliest countries in the world to be a human rights defender.
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What else you can do
For further background on this case including letter writing, please read the original Urgent Action.
Top image: An iron ore processing plant being built next to the Guapinol river, Colon, Honduras. Photo by Sean Hawkey.
