As ESCR-Net, we express our deep solidarity with the Garífuna people in Honduras, and especially with the Black Fraternal Organization of Honduras (OFRANEH), in the face of increasing violence, criminalization, and repression they are enduring for defending life, land, and collective rights. As an international network of social movements, organizations, and human rights defenders, we raise our voices alongside OFRANEH and demand justice.
For decades, the Garífuna people have faced land dispossession, structural racism, and systematic violence from both the State and private actors. Their communities, mainly located along the northern coast of the country, defend their ancestral territories from tourism, agribusiness, and extractive projects that proceed without prior consultation, violating rights recognized at national and international levels.
In the early morning hours of April 12, Max Gil Castillo, a young Garífuna from the Punta Piedra community in Iriona, Colón, was abducted by armed men who claimed to be police officers. He was violently taken from his home while he slept in San Pedro Sula. Since then, his whereabouts remain unknown, and complaints filed by his family have received no response from the Honduran government.
Max is the brother of Tomás Castillo, president of the Punta Piedra Community Council and a well-known leader in the struggle for the restitution of ancestral lands. His disappearance occurred just days after Garífuna communities mobilized in Tegucigalpa to denounce the inaction of the High-Level Commission for Compliance with International Judgments (CIANCSI) and to demand the effective implementation of rulings by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) regarding Punta Piedra and Triunfo de la Cruz.
This is not an isolated incident. Just hours after Max’s disappearance, Miriam Miranda, OFRANEH’s coordinator, reported new death threats against herself and other members of the Garífuna community. In an audio message shared by Miriam, direct threats referencing the ongoing land conflict can be heard: “We will come to your homes to make you pay. We will kill you,” warns a distorted voice.
Miranda has long been a target of harassment. In November 2023, she reported that armed men were seen near her home in the Vallecito community. Although the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights granted her protective measures, the Honduran State has failed to ensure her safety or that of other Garífuna leaders.
The disappearance of Max Gil Castillo and the threats against Miranda are part of a broader pattern of structural violence and criminalization directed at the Garífuna people—one that must be understood within the framework of the Political Economy of Violence. In this context, business, state, and criminal actors operate in coordination to facilitate the dispossession of collective lands and the control of natural resources. The systematic repression of leaders and communities reflects an extractivist logic enforced through militarization, impunity, and deeply rooted racism within State institutions.
ESCR-Net calls for the immediate clarification of Max Gil Castillo’s whereabouts, the prosecution of those responsible for his disappearance, and an end to the persecution of land and life defenders. We also reiterate our urgent call to the Honduran State to comply with the rulings of the Inter-American Court and to guarantee the safety of the Garífuna people.
To learn more about what is happening to the Garífuna people in Honduras, you can find all of OFRANEH’s statements at: 🔗 https://twitter.com/ofraneh
