Juana María Perea, was an environmental rights defender in Nuquí, Chocó. She had set up a dressmaking business “Costurero Golfo de Tribugá” and had trained local women to make clothes as a way to extend their economic options.
She had also actively opposed the construction of a new port in Tribugá because of the threat to that ecologically sensitive part of the Pacific.
In the months prior to her murder she had been organising workshops on biosecurity and environmental protection for the owners of small eco-tourism hotels in the area.
Juana María had lodged official complaints about the activities of paramilitary groups in the area which were damaging the environment.
On the 29 October, 2020, armed men came to her house in Nuquí,and dragged her out.. They then took her out on the river in a motor launch, shot her and dumped her body in the river. Her body was found on the river bank the next day.
A member of the Clan del Golfo, Néstor Leonel Lozano Muriel, known as El Tigre or Guachón, has been sentenced to seventeen years in prison for her murder. Two other people have been arrested for complicity in the killing.
