It has been three weeks since Marcus Canti, the top elected Alcalde of Indian Creek village in southern Belize, vanished without a trace — a disappearance that sent immediate shockwaves across the small Maya community and put long-simmering local disputes in the national spotlight. Now, after being found alive but deeply shaken by his ordeal, Canti has spoken publicly for the first time, detailing the terrifying moments of his abduction and calling out law enforcement for what he calls a negligent, glacial investigation into the attack.
In a candid, emotional account of the April 13 incident, Canti explained that he had long avoided traveling alone amid rising community tensions, knowing local authorities had previously attempted to detain him with villagers successfully blocking those efforts by standing as witnesses. But on that fateful day, he made a quick, fateful choice to head alone to his small farm to harvest tomatoes, a trip he expected to take mere minutes.
Unbeknownst to him, his attackers had been monitoring his movements, he said. As he finished collecting his crop, four men approached and grabbed him, quickly joined by a fifth who held Canti at gunpoint and marched him to a waiting truck parked off the nearby road. Canti told reporters that a sixth accomplice was already waiting in the vehicle, where he was immediately bound, gagged, and blindfolded. Though all attackers wore face coverings to hide their identities, Canti told investigators he was able to recognize several of the men by their distinct voices. He was held captive without access to water or food, beaten, and eventually abandoned before he was able to return to his community.
Three weeks on, however, no suspects have been arrested, and Canti says there has been barely any progress in the case. Frustrated by the lack of movement from law enforcement, he charged that investigators are treating the violent abduction of an indigenous community leader as an afterthought.
“I am deeply concerned by the agonizingly slow pace of the police investigation,” Canti said. “The investigative team provides no regular updates; we have to constantly reach out to them for any information, and almost nothing has been done. It seems clear they are not taking this matter seriously. A crime was undeniably committed against me: I was forcibly taken from my land, held hostage, abused, and left for dead. If this happened to any other person, would the police drag their feet this way? I have given my full statement, I have named the men responsible. It is their job to investigate, test those claims, and deliver justice. There can be no more delay.”
The broader context of the attack, Maya community leaders say, stretches far beyond this single violent incident, rooted in decades of unresolved disputes over land rights, leadership authority, and outside intervention in indigenous communal lands. Cristina Coc, spokesperson for both the Toledo Alcalde Association and the Maya Leaders Alliance, told reporters that escalating friction in Indian Creek can be traced directly to the presence of rangers from Ya’axché, a conservation organization that community members say has interfered with traditional Maya land use practices.
Coc emphasized that the abduction of a sitting local magistrate is a grave offense that demands urgent action, pushing back against the idea that crimes against low-income indigenous people deserve less investigative priority. “This is not an isolated attack,” she said. “All of these tensions, all of these underlying conflicts, have been documented and reported to the government for months, even years. Unresolved issues around land authority and outside intervention by groups like Ya’axché have steadily escalated, and now we have seen this violence. Just because we are poor indigenous people does not mean a crime against us is any less worthy of full, exhaustive investigation. We demand justice for Marcus Canti, and we demand that the government finally address the root causes of this violence before more harm is done.”
This report is adapted from a televised evening newscast, with all direct quotations preserved and translated accurately for the online audience.