‘We’re still in the dark’: a missing land defender and the deadly toll of land conflict on Indigenous people

Julia Chunil is one of 146 land defenders who were killed or went missing last year, a third of them from Indigenous communities

One day last November, Julia Chunil called for her dog, Cholito, and they set off into the woods around her home to search for lost livestock. The animals returned but Chunil, who was 72 at the time, and Cholito did not.

More than 100 people joined her family in a search lasting weeks in the steep, wet and densely overgrown terrain of Chile's ancient Valdivian forest. After a month, they even kept an eye on vultures for any grim signs. But they found no trace of Chunil.