Tegucigalpa – The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (Oacnudh) has expressed its condemnation of the recent murder of Martín Morales, a prominent defender of the Garífuna community of Triunfo de la Cruz in the Honduran Caribbean. In a statement on Twitter, the Oacnudh urged the authorities to carry out a timely and effective investigation into this tragic event.
Morales’ body was found last Sunday in the Gama River, near Triunfo de la Cruz, a black community located 3 kilometers from the municipality of Tela, Atlántida. His disappearance had been reported a day earlier by the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (Ofraneh).
According to the Oacnudh, this is the second Garífuna defender to be found dead in the area of the Gama River, close to the recovered territory of Secundino Torres, which overlaps with part of the Punta Izopo National Park.
The international organization called on the Honduran authorities to carry out timely and effective investigations to clarify the deaths of the two Garífuna defenders.
Martín Morales was a member of the commission for monitoring and compliance with the sentence issued by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) and a collaborator of the Triunfo de la Cruz Land Defense Committee.
In recent months, Oacnudh has observed an increase in attacks, threats, and murders of human rights defenders in the Bajo Aguán region, where there have been numerous confrontations between peasants and landowners.
Since 2022, there have been five murders of human rights defenders in the context of the territorial conflict in Bajo Aguán. Four of the victims were members of peasant cooperatives that signed an agreement with the Government of Honduras and the Agrarian Platform to address the structural causes of the agrarian conflict.
Two of the victims had protection measures from the National Protection Mechanism and another had a precautionary measure from the IACHR since 2014. Oacnudh remains vigilant and reaffirms its commitment to ensure the protection of human rights defenders in Honduras.
