Peru Indigenous leader shot dead on Amazon patrol

Americo Pascuala Tomisha, a 57-year-old Asheninka Indigenous leader and environmental defender, was shot dead on Sunday while patrolling his community's Amazonian territory in Peru's Ucayali region, authorities said.

Peru's culture ministry condemned his death, and national prosecutors have opened a murder investigation.

ORAU, a collective representing regional Indigenous groups, said Pascuala was hit by gunfire by unidentified people extracting copaiba oil from trees in the area. The group said he had reported the presence of unknown third parties on his ancestral lands since 2020.

ORAU vice president Herlin Odicio called the killing deplorable and said what happens in the Amazon must not go unpunished.

The killing came a day after a Peruvian court convicted four people over the 2023 murder of Quinto Inuma, a prominent Kichwa leader from the Amazonian San Martin region.

The NGO Global Witness says at least 62 land and environmental defenders were killed in Peru between 2012 and 2024, more than half of them from Indigenous communities.