Woman holding an image of Berta Cáceres. Photo: Daniel Cima/ CIDH. All rights reserved.
Unlike Berta Cáceres, who was gunned down in the sleepy Honduran town of Esperanza a year ago, primary school teacher and Tolupan indigenous community leader José Santos Sevilla was not well-known. But his murder on February, 17, had chilling parallels with that of the 2015 Goldman Environmental Prize winner.
Like Cáceres, Santos was sleeping when he was fatally shot by masked gunmen who had broken into his home in the municipality of Orica, some 75 miles northeast of Honduras capital city, Tegucigalpa. Alexander Rodríguez, the mayor of Orica and a friend of Santos, said the motive was unknown. However, other indigenous Tolupa community members have been killed during peaceful protests against mining and logging operations in their territory, agencies reported.
