"Carrizalillo denounces death threats and reiterates call for respectful negotiations with Equinox Gold as company leadership makes surprise visit", 03 March 2025

...On Sunday, representatives of the community of Carrizalillo, a community of 3,500 located roughly 500 metres from the cyanide leaching pad of Equinox Gold’s Los Filos mine in Guerrero, Mexico, sent a letter to CEO and President Greg Smith. The correspondence denounces a surprise visit to the community from top company leadership in Mexico as part of efforts to discredit Carrizalillo’s representatives while death threats have been escalating against their members. 

Since late January, Carrizalillo has been calling for a reset in renegotiations over new land use and social cooperation agreements with Equinox Gold that are set to expire at the end of March. The company requires a land use agreement with Carrizalillo to operate Los Filos, given the majority of mine installations are currently located on their land. The company has also sought agreements with two other communities onto whose lands the mine is expanding. 

The company has repeatedly issued an ultimatum over the negotiations in its public communications, stating that if it does not achieve the terms it seeks in the agreements with Carrizalillo - which amount to drastic cuts in current agreements - it will indefinitely close the mine...

Carrizalillo’s recent letter questions the intentions of Equinox Gold’s top leadership in Mexico when they organized the last-minute visit to the community on Saturday, perceiving it as an act of provocation...

With a megaphone in hand, Mr. Ortega arrived threatening that if Carrizalillo refused to sign a final agreement with the company that day that the mine would close...

The community has lost nearly all of its agricultural lands to the Los Filos mine operations since the mine was installed in 2007, along with multiple water sources and a corresponding rise in health harms...

The letter further denounces company leadership for reinforcing the prominent discourse that company communications have generated, blaming Carrizalillo and especially community leadership for the threatened mine closure...

The community letter seeks to set the record straight stating that they are not opposed to negotiations, but that they won’t do so in the streets nor will they tolerate constant discrimination and stigmatization...