Central America
Panama’s indigenous people compete to preserve traditional way of life
AFP
Climaco Dogirama wanted to honor his grandfather when he took part in the spear-throwing competition at Panama’s Indigenous Ancestral Games, which seek to preserve age-old customs.
“My grandfather used the spear to hunt. We only use it for sport … but we’re representing him,” he told AFP.
Dogirama, 37, from the Embera community, is one of 250 competitors from Panama’s seven recognized Indigenous ethnicities taking part in traditional athletic feats at the Games.
The major cultural festival transcends the simple quest for sporting success by helping to preserve a way of life.
“Many of us have lost (our traditions) and we’re recovering them again, we’re rescuing (our ancestors’) culture,” said Dogirama.
It is the third edition of the event that resembles the Scottish Highland Games and Basque rural sports competitions.
In Panama, contestants compete in archery, spear throwing, log carrying, tug-of-war, running, swimming and canoeing in Ngabe-Bugle, the largest of Panama’s five traditional Indigenous regions.
Cesar Cires, from the Ngabe tribe and president of the Indigenous Ancestral Games said the event “was born with the idea of disseminating, preserving and promoting our Indigenous cultures through ancestral sporting activities.”
“Our ancestors were warriors. We try to teach the new generations that once upon a time this was important.”
David Mezua, 18, who won the open water swimming event in the Caribbean Sea, said he was “proud to be Embera.”
“I’m happy … My grandfather was too and I don’t want to lose our culture, I want to keep it going,” said Mezua.
Kasey Shields, 16, who has a British father and Guna mother, won the women’s swimming discipline.
“I love swimming and even more so my Indigenous culture. I want to learn much more” about it, she said.
Cires said Panama competed in the last two editions of the World Indigenous Games in Brazil in 2015 and Canada two years later.
He said they will send a delegation to the third edition in Brazil next year,
The seven recognized Indigenous ethnicities in Panama are the Ngabe, Bugle, Guna, Embera, Wounaan, Bri bri and Naso Tjerdi.
Altogether they represent 12 percent of Panama’s 4.3 million population, according to the last official census in 2010.
According to the Denmark-based International Working Group for Indigenous Affairs, these communities “are facing a number of challenges, especially in relation to recognition of and rights to territories as well as forcible eviction.”
Central America
El Salvador reaches 270 homicide-free days in 2025, PNC reports
El Salvador closed Wednesday, November 19, with zero homicides nationwide, according to National Civil Police (PNC) statistics released early Thursday morning.
The PNC reported that this latest day without violent deaths brings the total to 19 homicide-free days so far in November 2025, including 13 consecutive days. Throughout 2025, the country has accumulated 270 days with zero homicides.
The 270 homicide-free days recorded this year are distributed as follows: 18 in November, 24 in October, 23 in September, 27 in August, 29 in July, 25 in June, 25 in January, 26 in February, 22 in March, 25 in April, and 25 in May.
Authorities attribute these security results to the government’s public safety measures, including the Territorial Control Plan and the state of exception, implemented in March 2022 to combat gang structures.
Since President Nayib Bukele took office in 2019, El Salvador has registered 1,057 homicide-free days, of which 943 occurred under the state of exception.
Central America
Arévalo warns of ‘Dark Interests’ targeting human rights defenders in Guatemala
Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo de León warned on Thursday that human rights defenders are facing serious threats, aggression, and criminalization by “dark interests” embedded within the structures of the State.
“Today we are facing serious levels of threats, aggression, and criminalization against people who promote respect for human rights, coming from actors and criminal networks—sometimes embedded in State institutions—that refuse to accept that Guatemala is changing,” Arévalo said during a public event held at the former Government Palace.
During the event, authorities presented the Public Policy for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders 2025–2035, an initiative developed in compliance with a 2014 resolution from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), issued in response to the killing of activist Florentín Gudiel Ramos in 2004.
Central America
Newborn found in Costa Rican dump survives two days in unsanitary conditions
Costa Rican media outlets report that a newborn baby was found in a garbage dump, where he had reportedly spent two days in unsanitary conditions.
Police located the infant after a resident alerted authorities upon hearing crying coming from a clandestine dumping site in the Rancho Guanacaste area. The newborn was discovered alive inside a drainage channel, covered in waste. He was immediately taken to the National Children’s Hospital, where he received medical care and is now in stable condition.
“The National Children’s Hospital confirms that we indeed received a newborn approximately four or five days old who was found in a wooded area near the Alajuelita roundabout. He was first taken to the Solón Núñez Clinic and then transferred to this hospital. As of now, the baby is in the emergency department in good condition. He arrived a bit cold, but he has been warmed, fed, and his initial physical exam is completely normal,” explained hospital director Carlos Jiménez Herrera, according to CR Hoy.
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