Indigenous Lenca leader shot dead in Honduras, police says

TEGUCIGALPA: A local leader of Honduras' indigenous

Lenca group

was shot to death Sunday, police said.

Pablo Isabel Hernandez

was killed on a dirt road near the town of San Marcos de Caiquin as he headed to a local church with his father and brothers, police spokesman

Cristian Manuel Nolasco

said.

Nolasco said the ambush may have been related to personal or political disputes.

Hernandez served as director of a radio station known as "Radio Tenan, the

Indigenous Voice of the Lencas

." He was also active in indigenous education and environmental projects.

The Association of Honduran Community Media said in a statement that it "considered the killing yet another attack on freedom of expression and the defense of human rights."

Hernandez was the second Lenca leader killed in less than a year. In March 2020, Lenca activist

Juan Carlos Cerros Escalante

was shot death in the town of Nueva Granada, in the Caribbean coast province of Cortes. He had helped lead a fight against construction of a dam.

Both Hernandez and Cerros Escalante belonged to the same indigenous community as

Berta Caceres

, a prize-winning environmental and Indigenous rights defender who was murdered in 2016.

According to rights groups, over three dozen environmental activists have been killed in Honduras since Caceres' death.

Caceres was a co-founder of the National Council of Popular

and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras

. She helped organize opposition to the Agua Zarca dam project, which was to be built on the Galcarque River. The river holds spiritual importance for the Lenca people as well as being a critical source of water. The dam project remains frozen.