"Defender Eustacio Alcalá is assassinated in Michoacán", 04 April 2023

...Human rights organizations denounced the disappearance and subsequent murder of Eustacio Alcalá Díaz, a defender in the community of San Juan Huitzontla, municipality of Chinicuila, Michoacán, and an opponent of mining activity in the region.

...[O]n Saturday, April 1, Eustacio Alcalá, known as Tacho, was driving a white Nissan van along the road that leads from the community from Huiztontla to the Coalcomán-Aquila federal highway to transfer some nuns when on the way, a group of people deprived him of his liberty, leaving the nuns on the side of the road.

This Tuesday afternoon, when measures were required to locate him, the National Network of Civil Human Rights Organizations “All Rights for All” reported the death of the defender...

Eustacio was the legal representative of Huitzontla, a community that decided by assembly to take legal action in defense of its territory and against mining exploitation in 2018. In January 2022, the community obtained an injunction against the granting of a mining concession, managing to stop the operation of six concessions granted to the Las Truchas mining company, of the ArcelorMittal company, and to the Las Encinas mining unit, of the Ternium Steel Company.

San Juan Huitzontla, a Nahua indigenous community, is located in the Michoacan sierra-coast, close to the communities of Aquila, Ostula, Coire and Achotán.

In this same region, just last January, Ricardo Arturo Lagunes Gasca, a human rights defender, and the indigenous community leader from Aquila, Michoacán, Antonio Díaz Valencia, disappeared...