An activist’s murder rocked Honduras. Now her daughter is in the hot seat

Three-year-old Bertha Zúñiga with her mother Berta Cáceres, in Azacualpa, in Honduras's western Intibucá department, in 1993. Courtesy Bertha Isabel Zúñiga Cáceres

Bertha Zúñiga is no stranger to threats. She remembers the day years ago when she and her colleagues were chased by machete-wielding attackers in western Honduras.

A vehicle blocked their car, and its passengers stepped out with their weapons, trying to attack the group. They managed to escape, but the incident was not the first – nor would it be the last time Zúñiga would face a violent threat.

That encounter came just over a year after Zúñiga’s mother, Berta Cáceres, a prominent indigenous rights activist in Honduras, was killed in her home in March 2016, leading to Zúñiga taking the leadership of her group, the Civic Cou