DUBLIN — At least 358 human rights defenders were killed globally in 2024, according to a report by Front Line Defenders. Colombia recorded the highest number of such killings, with 165 documented cases.

Of the human rights defenders killed in 2024, 84 were targeted for their work protecting land and the environment. These killings of environmental and land defenders were documented across 14 countries: Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Honduras, Guatemala, Mexico, India, Indonesia, Peru, Philippines, Turkey, Somalia, and Palestine.

Indigenous rights defenders constituted 17 percent of the human rights defender killings documented by Front Line Defenders in 2024. In addition to fatalities, there were nearly 4,000 non-lethal attacks on human rights defenders recorded in 119 countries during 2024.

Efraín Fueres, a 46-year-old Ecuadorian environmental defender, was killed in 2024. He had participated in nationwide protests in Ecuador in the fall of that year. Social media videos showed Fueres being shot while marching, and separate videos depicted armed officers surrounding him and his companion after the shooting. The videos also showed armed officers repeatedly kicking Fueres' companion.

The Front Line Defenders report stated that factors such as internet blackouts, media suppression, targeting of documenters, self-censorship, and complete closure of civic spaces make some cases impossible to document. The report specified China, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Iran as countries where political restrictions or conflicts hinder the documentation of attacks. It described overlapping networks of government officials, corporations, criminal groups, and private security forces operating around extractive industries and land development as "economies of violence." The report noted that "Defenders who challenge land dispossession, extractive industries, or illicit economies often confronted the same networks of power, regardless of whether those activities were formally lawful or criminalised." In Ecuador, the report stated that the majority of criminalization cases occurred in the context of socio-environmental conflicts where mining projects were implemented without the free, prior, and informed consent of communities.

Ecuadorian officials temporarily froze the accounts of several prominent environmental defenders in 2024, citing investigations into "unjust private enrichment" and "financing terrorism." Some environmental defenders in Ecuador lost access to banking services as a result of these account freezes. Members of CONAIE observed a moment of silence honoring Efraín Fueres on September 29, 2025, in Quito, Ecuador. More than 165 countries have recognized the human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment.