Americo Pascual alive after Peru death claim retracted

An Indigenous organization in Peru said Wednesday that Americo Pascual, a 57-year-old Asheninka leader and environmental defender it had previously reported killed, is alive and with his family.

The ORAU collective had said Pascual was shot dead on Sunday in the remote Yurua district of Ucayali, near the border with Brazil. It later retracted the claim after state television channel TV Peru released a video showing him at home.

“They say I'm dead; what are they playing at?” Pascual says in the recording. “I'm right here, calm, in my house.”

ORAU said an Indigenous group traveled to Yurua to confirm that Pascual was alive. The group said its original statement followed information from a community member to Pascual's son about an alleged murder.

ORAU had previously said Pascual was hit by gunfire from “third parties” extracting copaiba oil from trees on his ancestral lands. That report prompted Peruvian prosecutors to open a homicide investigation.

Authorities had not yet commented on the revelation that Pascual is alive. Peru's culture ministry, which had condemned the supposed death online, deleted the post on Wednesday.

Indigenous activists across Latin America face threats linked to environmental advocacy, especially when denouncing crimes such as deforestation. 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.