On Friday afternoon, Cristino Castro Perea, known as "Tino Castro" aged 63, was murdered in Barra de la Cruz, Oaxaca. Castro was a member of a collective of environmental defenders and a community defender in the municipality of Santiago Astata. Two individuals on a motorcycle shot him in the center of the community, taking his life.
In 2023, Castro was included in the Protection Mechanism for Human Rights Defenders and Journalists due to his work defending land and territory and because he was in a situation of risk. Maurilio Santiago from CDHAPI A.C explained that in 2013 there were attempts to appropriate land, financed by groups of economic and political power, to subdivide and sell to entrepreneurs.
In February 2022, an external group destroyed mangroves in "El Nanche", despite prior agreements of respect. In December 2023, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador declared the region a protected natural area, which does not justify the interference of political groups. Following Castro's murder, the organization demanded an investigation and sanctions against those responsible, as well as actions to ensure the safety of environmental defenders.
Castro was also a prominent baseball player, the champion manager of the Barra de la Cruz team in 2023. According to a report by EDUCA A.C, Oaxaca records 58 murdered defenders between December 2018 and October 2024, as part of a total of 252 attacks on the lives of defenders in Mexico.