Luis Gutiérrez, age 45, was a member of the organization Resistencia Civil Madera y Madera Unido. He was “executed and his body was later found inside a parked vehicle on the highway from Madera to Nahuerachi,” according to a statement in the press. Luis had left home for one of the weekly meetings held by social activists in the state capital, but never returned.

Dedicated to providing medicine and foodstuffs to the Tarahumara people of Chihuahua, Lucas also often accompanied them when carrying out legal processes. He became well known for confronting the governor of Chihuahua in a face-to-face meeting in which he requested that low-cost automobiles purchased in the USA be regulated.

“This is how social activists are silenced… On Sunday he had just finished hosting an event in which medications were collected for donation to local hospitals” said a fellow human rights defender to Agence France-Presse

The assassinations of human rights defenders in Mexico has motivated complaints to the national government as well as to international organisations such as the UN. One of the most emblematic of these cases was the murder of Guadalupe Campanur at the beginning of 2018.