Justice for Communities Impacted by Aura Minerals
In 2022, Miami-based transnational mining company Aura Minerals destroyed a 200-year-old cemetery belonging to the Maya Chortí community of Azacualpa in Honduras. To date there has been no justice for the company’s destruction of the sacred site. And the ongoing expansion of the San Andres gold mine now threatens to forcibly displace the community of Azacualpa, contaminate vital water sources for nearby communities, and criminalize Indigenous leaders. Despite well-documented human rights violations, U.S.-based refineries continue to buy gold from this mining project. At CATRA, we support communities directly impacted by this extractive violence through corporate research, documentation of rights violations, and advocacy campaigns to call for justice for grave human rights abuses.
Local community members hang a cross against the wire-fence during "Dia de Finados" or the Day of the Dead, after the mining company sealed off the entrance to the cemetery with barbed wire and a cement barrier.
One of the local Catholic churches is viewed with different sized cracks caused by the mining company's heavy dynamite explosions to extract gold from the ground.
This picture represents all that is left of the local community cemetery, which used to sit on a hill-side. The mining company has grazed the hill to the ground, leaving no trace of the camposanto, or holy ground.
Aura Minosa created a cemetery in each small town near the mine to "replace" the 200-year old community cemetery. Graves without names are marked with letters and numbers, such as ASA 163 - AZ 06-02.
Residents near the area of the mining site have cracks throughout different parts of their houses, as a result of heavy dynamite explosions.
Acid rock drainage is seen in one of the streams nearly 2km from the mining site.
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