"Fears mount over safety of two missing Mexican environmental activists", 17 January 2023

...Ricardo Arturo Lagunes Gasca, a human rights lawyer and environmentalist and Antonio Díaz Valencia, leader of the Aquila Indigenous community in Michoacán, were last seen on Sunday evening travelling toward the neighbouring state of Colima after attending an anti-mining community meeting.

Lagunes, 41, and Díaz, 71, are presumed to have been abducted after the white Honda pickup truck was found abandoned on the side of a highway.

Lagunes, a high-profile environmental and land rights lawyer who has faced multiple death threats over the years, is representing the Aquila community against mining operations which have generated a myriad of environmental, health and social harms...

Thousands of people have signed a petition calling on authorities to rescue the men amid fears that it could already be too late.

Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for environmental and land rights defenders...In 2021, 54 land rights defenders were murdered and 19 others disappeared...

Lagunes had previously helped Indigenous communities in the states of Chiapas, Oaxaca, Yucatán and Campeche win legal land battles, and also worked on defending migrants and refugees...