On Sunday May 5, locals of Ensenada, Mexico held a protest at the city’s main plaza to express outrage and concern following the recent murders of three traveling surfers in the area – two Australians and an American – resulting from what is suspected to be a violent carjacking. Dozens of protestors gathered and marched to display their outrage surrounding the violence that they experience in Northern Baja California, and the country as a whole, in addition to demanding safe, accessible, and clean beaches.
Protestors brought surfboards, bodyboards, and signs that included messages such as, “Beaches, safety, freedom, peace,” “In 2024, of 134 missing people only 22 percent have been found,” “I demand a safe Ensenada for my family,” “They just wanted to surf,” and “When will Mexico wake up to find our own (missing people)?”
Another painted surfboard read, “Surfer deaths in 2024: 0 from shark attacks, 3 from human attacks. No more impunity.”
In addition to the protest, on Sunday local surfers held a paddle out at San Miguel in remembrance of the deceased visitors.
“Usually it’s us women, the ones who are afraid, right?” Paulina Rodriguez, a local surfer who attended the paddle out, told the Associated Press. “And now it happened to these three young men. So I feel more vulnerable. I feel that we are all more vulnerable now. I feel powerless, very angry. More than anything else, the impunity that exists in this country is what bothers me most.”
The surfers, Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and American Jack Carter Rhoad, first went missing sometime around the weekend of April 27. The ensuing investigation led to the arrests of three suspects believed to have been involved in the murders as well as the discovery of a well the following weekend that contained the bodies, plus an additional body of a landowner that apparently had been there for much longer.
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