The lynching of an indigenous land defender in Costa Rica is challenging the Central American country's reputation for being the safest in the region.

The events leading up to Monday night's fatal shooting in Terraba remain unclear.  But it appears a group of angry locals in armed with sticks, machetes, stones and at least one gun confronted members of the Broran community who have been trying to reclaim ancestral lands.  

Someone shot 45-year old Broran activist Yehry Rivera, who bled out in the street even though there was a police vehicle right there.  Mr. Rivera had already survived a brutal beating in 2013 while trying to stop illegal loggers.  The alleged perpetrator was set free after being ordered not to return to Terraba for six months.

Monday's killing comes just three weeks after a leader of the Bribri indigenous people, 29-year old Mainor Ortiz Delgado, in was wounded in a shooting.

Attacks on the Broran and another indigenous group the Bribri have including assaults and other violence, and legal harassment in the form of trumped-up and retaliatory lawsuits.  Because of this, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in 2015 called on Costa Rican authorities to protect the lives and physical integrity of the Bribri and Broran people - protections that Mr. Ortiz Delgado and Mr. Rivera were supposed to have. sexe24