On May 22, the Peace Brigades International-Honduras Project posted own social media:
“The Agrarian Platform rejects the characterization of the massacre that took place in the community of Rigores, Finca Paso Aguán, as a conflict between farmers; it reaffirms that the farmers’ struggle is nonviolent and can achieve success through legal channels, unity, and a popular movement, and calls for an independent investigation into the events that occurred.
This situation of extreme violence in Bajo Aguán has occurred during a tour by UN agencies in Honduras of peasant communities in the department of Colón, which aimed to highlight the needs and dangerous situation facing peasant communities in the area.
During the tour, accompanied by PBI, attention was drawn to the lack of school resources and electrical infrastructure, as well as the presence of armed groups in the area that threaten the safety of the peasant population.”
Additional context
Deutsche Welle reports: “Two separate armed attacks in Honduras killed at least 24 people on Thursday [May 21], according to police. The first incident took place at a ranch [the Paso Aguán farm] in the municipality of Trujillo, leaving at least 19 workers dead.”
Infobae provides this additional context: “The community of Rigores, in the municipality of Trujillo, department of Colón, became this morning of Friday, May 22, the epicenter of an indescribable and collective pain. In a suffocating atmosphere of mourning, terror and generalized impotence, the inhabitants and relatives gave a Christian burial to 11 of the victims identified in the bloody massacre perpetrated yesterday in an African palm plantation on the Paso Aguán farm.”
That Infobae news article adds: “Among the most devastating scenes of the funeral day was the burial of the sisters María Linda, Mirza and Rosa Rodríguez, three young workers whose lives were brutally cut short while they were looking for daily sustenance for their homes.”
We continue to follow this.
