Guatemalan Indigenous Leader Dies Fighting for Water Rights

A prominent indigenous leader died after a 10-day march across the country demanding access to water and land, Guatemalan Indigenous authorities reported Tuesday, as the physical strain of the march dramatically weakened the elderly leader who died at a Guatemala City hospital's emergency service.

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Jesus Alvarez was one of the 15,000 Indigenous people who participated in the March for Water that ended Friday in the country's capital. The march was organized to defend their rights over ancestral lands and to condemn the exploitation and contamination of their rivers by mining corporations.

Alvarez suffered from physical debilitation, said the federation of Chorti Indigenous and campesinos organizations in a communique, as a result of his effort to protect his territory.

“He had to be transported to the hospital because of ... symptoms that our brothers and sisters typically suffer from, as a result of the impoverishment they have gone through since the implementation of this system on our lands 500 years ago,” the statement read.

His relatives have not recovered his body yet because they lack the economic resources. They called for solidarity so that his body can be return to his ancestral land.

When the march ended on Friday, Alvarez and other Chorti leaders formally requested the country's Supreme Court recognize their rights to their ancestral lands. The court agreed to deal with the request Monday.