ACI Prensa Staff, Oct 19, 2023 / 18:40 pm
Father José Filiberto Velázquez Florencio, a priest of the Diocese of Chilpancingo-Chilapa in the Mexican state of Guerrero, reported that he was attacked around midnight Oct. 18. The “motive,” he said, was his work in defense of human rights in the area.
Velázquez is director of the “Minerva Bello” Center for the Rights of Victims of Violence, an organization that provides support to the victims or relatives of those who have been attacked, disappeared, forced to move, or killed and is based in Chilpancingo.
In an interview with ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, the priest said the attack occurred when he was returning home after providing advice to students from the state of Chiapas attending the Rural Teachers College of Ayotzinapa, a town in the state of Guerrero.
In 2014, 43 students of the same school were “disappeared” in a case that shocked the world and that has never been solved. In Latin America, someone who “was disappeared” means that the person was abducted and very likely killed, whether by organized crime or by left-wing or right-wing forces.