Local officials said on Sunday that an environmental worker was shot dead against the destruction of Amazon in the Peru forest.
According to the local prosecutor’s office, Hypolito Quispehman was killed on Saturday night while driving with a part of the Interiocianic highway in the South -East Madrey Day Dies area.
Quispehuman served as a member of the Tambopata National Reserve Management Committee.
Local prosecutor Karen Torres told reporters, “This is a murder with another defender in the Madre Dey Dies area.”
Torres said that the initial purpose being believed by the investigators was that the murder was in vengeance for advocacy work.
The victim’s brother, Angel Quispehuman told reporters, “I demand justice for my brother’s death. Such a thing may not happen.”
The National Coordinator of Peru for Human Rights (CNDDHHH) condemned the murder and “demanded immediate and effective measures to protect the lives and works of the Peru State (Rights) defenders.”
“Not another death! Enough with the killings of human rights guards!” Cnddhh said on x.
The Ministry of Justice “pledged to work on the legal defense of the victims, so that the crime is not unaffected,” it is written on X.
Attacks against environmental activists have increased in the Amazonian regions of Peru in recent years, where the presence of national authorities is rare.
In July 2024, indigenous environment activist Mariano Isakama was murdered in the Amazon region of Ukali, about 308 miles east of the capital Lima.
Indigenous people face the increasing presence of drug smugglers and illegal mining, both destroying the Amazon region.
According to the non-governmental organization Global Witness, at least 54 land and environmental defenders have been killed in Peru since 2012, of which more than half of which were indigenous people.
