LA ESPERANZA, HONDURAS — An award-winning indigenous-rights leader was gunned down in Honduras on Thursday.
Berta Cáceres, the winner of the 2015 Goldman Prize, which was the world's top award for grassroots environmental activism, was murdered at a house in the town of La Esperanza in western Honduras.
"They follow me, they threaten to kill me, to kidnap me. They threaten my family. This is what we are facing," Cáceres said in her speech when accepting the prize last April in San Francisco.
Cáceres had government protection, which included a police car parked in front of her home. However, she was killed in another house nearby that was without protection on the night of her death. Two gunmen allegedly broke into the home and shot her.
Cáceres' mother and her fellow activists believe her death was an assassination, while the police said she was killed in a robbery.
"The information from the police is that (attackers) broke into her home from the back and shot her twice, but we all know it's a lie, that they killed her because of her struggle," activist Carlos Reyes told AFP.
Cáceres had led a long fight against the proposal to build the Agua Zarca Dam along the Gualcarque River.
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