Police are investigating the death of a British Catholic missionary and environmental activist after he was found dead in a hostel in Peru.
Paul McAuley, a lay brother of the Catholic De La Salle Brothers teaching order, was found dead at the hostel he ran for Indigenous students in the city of Iquitos. The BBC said local media had reported the body had been burned.
A picture of Paul McAuley published on Facebook by the Peruvian Episcopal Conference.
In a statement sent to Catholic news agency, Agenzia Fides, the Peruvian Catholic Episcopal Conference asked authorities to clarify the facts and find those responsible.
The 71-year-old, born in Portsmouth, England, had been in Peru since 1995 and had lived in Iquitos for 19 years. He had been awarded an MBE for his work in establishing a school in a poor area of the capital city of Lima.
Andy Lester, of Christian environmental organisation A Rocha UK, told Premier Radio in the UK, that McAuley’s primary work had been around educating the local community to “help them to understand their rights so that when they’re faced with big organisations, big business, trying to undermine local Indigenous rights, they are educated enough that they can stand up and fight back themselves”.
“So that was what he was fighting for – he was fighting for Indigenous rights against big business…His loss is a tragic end but the movement that he represents and the power that it represents is undiminished.”
