canadian tourist killed in peru

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Canadian man lynched over shaman's death in Peru

April 23, 2018 / 6:04 AM EDT / AP

LIMA, Peru -- A 41-year-old Canadian who traveled to Peru to study hallucinogenic medicine was killed by a mob in a remote corner of the Amazon rain forest after people blamed him for the slaying of an elderly shaman, authorities said Sunday. Peru's attorney general's office said Sebastian Woodroffe was dragged by the neck shortly after the killing of Olivia Arevalo, an octogenarian plant healer from the Shipibo-Konibo tribe of northeastern Peru.

Officials backed away from initial reports that Woodroffe was the principal suspect in Arevalo's killing.

Arevalo and Woodroffe were both killed Thursday in the indigenous community of Victoria Gracia, officials said. But police did not begin to investigate until a cellphone video appeared in local media showing a man purported to be Woodroffe begging for mercy while being dragged between thatch-roofed homes. He was then left motionless on the muddy ground.

On Saturday, officials dug up Woodroffe's body from an unmarked grave where he had been hastily buried.

Every year thousands of foreign tourists travel to the Peruvian Amazon to experiment with ayahuasca, a bitter, dark-colored brew made of a mixture of native plants. The hallucinogenic cocktail, also known as yage, has been venerated for centuries by indigenous tribes in Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia as a cure for all sorts of ailments. But it's also increasingly consumed by Western tourists looking for mind-altering experiences, sometimes with deadly consequences.

Arevalo was a staunch defender of indigenous people's rights in the region. She also practiced a traditional form of singing medicine that the Shipibo believe removes negative energies from individuals and a group alike.

She can be heard singing a traditional plant song on the website of the Temple of the Way of Lights, which describes itself as a plant-shamanic healing center in the Peruvian Amazon.

In 2015, a Canadian fatally stabbed a fellow tourist from England after the two drank ayahuasca together in a spiritual ceremony a few hours' drive from where Woodroffe was killed.

Woodroffe, from the town of Courtenay on Victoria island in British Columbia, said before going to Peru that he hoped an apprenticeship with a plant healer from the Shipibo tribe would help his goal of changing careers to become an addiction counselor using hallucinogenic medicine.

"The plant medicine I have the opportunity of learning is far deeper than ingesting a plant and being healed. It is not about getting 'high' either. It is true some of the plants I will be learning about do have a perception-altering effect, but these are a few plants out of thousands I will be working with," he wrote on the Indiegogo crowd-funding website seeking financial help to advance his studies.

"I am in this for the long haul.  This is more than a 'job' to me.  I want not only for people to recover ... I want to turn them on to the wonders of existence, and have them leave as a renewed friend and lover of this thing we call life," he added.

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Canadian lynched in Peruvian Amazon was accused of killing Indigenous human rights defender

When Sebastian Woodroffe's name and face somehow landed on a wanted poster accusing him of murdering a shaman, an enraged community appears to have taken matters into its own hands

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It was October 2013 when Sebastian Woodroffe decided to quit his job and leave his home in Canada to study plant medicine in Peru. A relative’s battle with alcoholism had inspired him to “fix the family’s spirit” and pursue a career as an addictions counsellor, he said in a YouTube video.

Woodroffe, then a 36-year-old father of a four-year-old boy, began raising money for an apprenticeship with traditional healers in the Amazon. He felt a responsibility to “support this culture and retain some of their treasure in me and my family, and share it with those that wish to learn,” he wrote on a fundraising page. He was particularly interested in experiencing ayahuasca, a sludgelike hallucinogenic potion used by indigenous shamans in spiritual exercises.

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It’s not entirely clear what happened in the years that followed, or whether the Canadian tourist found the healing for which he was searching in the Peruvian Amazon. But late last week, this Canadian tourist’s name and face somehow landed on a wanted poster accusing him of murdering a beloved shaman and indigenous activist in a remote rain forest in northeastern Peru.

Enraged members of the indigenous community appear to have taken matters into their own hands. Peruvian authorities say a mob of locals in the Amazonian region of Ucayali lynched Woodroffe before burying him in a makeshift grave.

A cellphone video that emerged in local news outlets shows a man – later identified by officials as Woodroffe – being dragged through the mud by a cord wrapped around his neck. He moans and pleads for mercy before lying motionless in the dirt.

Police found the buried corpse and identified it as Woodroffe’s body, Peru’s interior ministry said in a statement Saturday, vowing to pursue an aggressive investigation into both his killing and that of the shaman, Olivia Arévalo Lomas, a respected member of the Shipibo-Konibo tribe in her 80s.

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Woodroffe’s body was buried less than a mile from Arévalo’s home, and an autopsy of the body revealed he died by strangulation after being beaten, Ricardo Palma Jimenez, the head of a group of prosecutors in Ucayali, told Reuters. His body has been transferred to a morgue in the nearby town of Pucallpa, the interior ministry said.

“We want the people of the Amazon to know that there is justice,” Jimenez told a Peruvian TV news station, “but not justice by their own hands.”

The killing of Arévalo, a respected indigenous-rights activist, spurred outrage within her tribe and across Peru, particularly in light of many recent unsolved killings of environmental and human rights activists in the region. The Amazon was cited as one of the regions worldwide with the most killings of activists, particularly indigenous activists, according to a 2016 study by the environmental watchdog group Global Witness. These disputes often arise over mining, agribusiness, logging, and dam projects.

We want the people of the Amazon to know that there is justice, but not justice by their own hands

Locals told an indigenous news outlet that witnesses saw Woodroffe shoot Arévalo multiple times after she sang an ikaro, or curing song. He then fled, local residents alleged, prompting Arévalo’s family members to post a “wanted” bulletin online and on Facebook, showing Woodroffe’s photo, identifying him by name and nationality, and offering a reward.

For the last several years, Arévalo had been working on ayahuasca “retreats” at a traditional healing center called Temple of the Way of Light, according to a website for the business. She has been working with traditional plant medicine since the age of 15, and comes from a long line of healers, the center wrote alongside a YouTube video that shows her singing one of her curing songs, or ikaros.

Ricardo Franco, Arévalo’s nephew, described her to a Peruvian TV station as “the mother that protects the earth in the jungle” and “the most beloved woman” in the tribe.

Ayahuasca retreats have become immensely popular among foreign tourists. Each year, thousands of people travel to the Peruvian Amazon to experiment with the hallucinogenic brew, also known as yage, and referred to by some locals as “the sacred vine of the soul.”

The potion contains dimethyltryptamine (DMT), a powerful hallucinogen that is only legal in Peru as part of spiritual exercises. Tourists from the United States, Australia, Canada and beyond flock to these jungle villages to participate in ayahuasca rituals in the hopes that the treatment might heal anything from depression to childhood trauma, The Washington Post reported in 2010. These retreats have in turn created a booming tourism industry in the region.

But the growing number of tourists in the town has added to mounting frustrations that a double standard exists in the way indigenous people are treated in the criminal justice system, local residents told Peruvian news broadcasters.

“There is justice for those with money,” one local resident, Alder Rengifo Torres, told TV Peru.

“A foreigner can come and kill us, day after day, like dogs or cats, and nothing happens, the state does nothing,” one local woman was captured on television telling a Peruvian vice minister who visited the indigenous community over the weekend.

A Peruvian ombudsman wrote a series of tweets condemning the killing of Arévalo Lomas, “a promoter of the cultural rights of the Shipibo-Conibo indigenous people.” He urged the government to protect indigenous peoples “in the face of an increase in illicit activities that put their lives at risk.”

A foreigner can come and kill us, day after day, like dogs or cats, and nothing happens, the state does nothing

But the ombudsman’s office also expressed its “resounding rejection of the lynching and murder of the alleged perpetrator” of Arévalo’s killing. “We ask the authorities for an in-depth investigation.”

In his online fundraising campaign to study in Peru, Woodroffe spoke of wanting to make several trips to the Amazon to “keep learning, bringing them love and friendship, and building community.” He said he had already begun learning Spanish, but was “not yet adept enough to go without a translator there with me daily.”

“Acceptance of their wisdom’s potency will bring value to the Shipibo, who are under threat from modernization and industry, helping preserve their eroding perch in the Amazon,” Woodroffe wrote.

Reached by The Washington Post, Woodroffe’s relative said his family declined to comment. His friend, Yarrow Willard, told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. that Woodroffe grew up in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island. He worked odd jobs in recent years, and did some professional diving.

Willard said Woodroffe had become more distant after trying ayahuasca in Peru, and came back “troubled” from his retreats there.

He described Woodroffe as a person “who likes to poke, and likes to test the boundaries of people’s beliefs, but is very much a gentle person underneath all that.” He found it hard to believe that his friend would ever be involved in a violent crime. “He had a beautiful spark to him that people respected and loved.”

“This man has never had a gun or talked about anything along that line,” Willard told the CBC. He suggested that Woodroffe may have become a scapegoat.

“We’ve just been in shock,” Willard said. “It just felt like a scam because there is no way this person is capable of that.”

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Canadian man lynched in Peru rainforest after being accused of murdering shamanistic healer

Police investigating after video of attack posted on social media, article bookmarked.

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A Canadian man has been lynched in the Peruvian Amazon after being accused of killing a local spiritual leader.

Sebastian Woodroffe, 41, a father of one, was dragged by the neck through a remote village following the death of Olivia Arevalo, a plant healer from the Shipibo-Konibo tribe of northeastern Peru , the country’s attorney general said.

Ms Arevalo was shot and killed near her home in the Ucayali region on Thursday. Mr Woodroffe, who had travelled to Peru to study hallucinogenic medicines, i s thought to have been one of her clients .

Villagers believed him responsible for her murder, but Peruvian officials later backed away from reports that he was the prime suspect.

Police did not begin to investigate until a phone video appeared in local media showing a man, apparently Mr Woodroffe, begging for mercy while being dragged between thatch-roofed homes. He was then left motionless on the muddy ground.

• Lifting sugarcane farming ban would be ‘last straw’ for Amazon

On Saturday, officials exhumed his body from an unmarked grave where he had been hastily buried. El Comercio reported that his body had been found in San Pablo de Tushmo, in Yarinacocha district.

Mr Jimenez said prosecutors were exploring several hypotheses related to Ms Arevalo’s murder and that it was too early to name suspects in the case. No arrests had been made yet in relation with Mr Woodroffe’s death, he added.

“We will not rest until both murders, of the indigenous woman as well as the Canadian man, are solved,” said Mr Jimenez in a phone interview.

He said the man in the video was Mr Woodroffe and that an autopsy showed he had died by strangulation after receiving several blows to his body. Reports differed as to whether Mr Woodroffe was killed on Thursday or Friday.

El Comercio reported that there were two leading hypotheses regarding the murder of Ms Arevalo, who was in her 80s. First, that a Canadian citizen killed her when she refused to undertake an ayahuasca session with him; and second, that she was killed by a foreigner over a debt.

But two of Ms Arevalo’s children had rejected the second version of events in statements to police, the site reported, saying their mother had no debts and that she no longer performed ayahuasca sessions because of ill health.

Every year, thousands of foreign tourists travel to the Peruvian Amazon to experiment with ayahuasca, a bitter, dark-coloured brew made of a mixture of native plants.

The hallucinogenic cocktail, also known as yage, has been venerated for centuries by indigenous tribes in Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia as a cure for all sorts of ailments. But it is also increasingly consumed by Western tourists looking for mind-altering experiences, sometimes with deadly consequences.

In 2015, a Canadian fatally stabbed a fellow tourist from England after the two drank ayahuasca together in a spiritual ceremony a few hours’ drive from where Mr Woodroffe was killed.

Ms Arevalo was a staunch defender of indigenous people’s rights in the region. She also practised a traditional form of singing medicine that the Shipibo believe removes negative energies.

She can be heard singing a traditional plant song on the website of the Temple of the Way of Light, which describes itself as a plant-shamanic healing centre in the Peruvian Amazon.

The temple, which runs retreats for tourists specifically advertising ayahuasca, bills itself online as “a pioneering healing centre” and “the safest and one of the most respected and long-established plant-spirit shamanism centres in the Amazon rainforest ”.

Explorer Bruce Parry features in one of numerous testimonial videos on its YouTube channel.

The temple published a statement on its website saying that Ms Arevalo had not worked there since 2011, due to her age. She had “a heart so full of love and compassion” and was a “walking encyclopaedia of traditional Shipibo plant medicine”, the organisation said.

The area where Mr Woodroffe and Ms Arevalo were killed is several hundred miles from the temple.

World news in pictures

Mr Woodroffe, from the town of Courtenay on Victoria island in British Columbia, said before going to Peru that he hoped an apprenticeship with a plant healer from the Shipibo tribe would help his goal of changing careers to become an addiction counsellor using hallucinogenic medicine.

“The plant medicine I have the opportunity of learning is far deeper than ingesting a plant and being healed. It is not about getting ‘high’ either.

“It is true some of the plants I will be learning about do have a perception-altering effect, but these are a few plants out of thousands I will be working with,” he wrote on the Indiegogo crowd-funding website seeking financial help to advance his studies.

“I am in this for the long haul. This is more than a ‘job’ to me. I want not only for people to recover... I want to turn them on to the wonders of existence, and have them leave as a renewed friend and lover of this thing we call life,” he added.

CBC reported he was the father of a nine-year-old boy.

Additional reporting by agencies

• This story was updated on 26 April to reflect a statement by the Temple of the Way of Light.

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Canadian Man Lynched in Connection With Shooting of Indigenous Leader in Peruvian Amazon

Sebastian Woodroffe was lynched last week by a mob after the fatal shooting of the Olivia Arévalo Lomas, of the Shipibo-Conibo people, in Ucayali

Days after the fatal shooting of a leader of an indigenous group in the Peruvian Amazon, the 41-year-old Canadian man suspected by some in her killing was himself found dead in what has been described as a mob “lynching,” according to government officials and news reports.

Olivia Arévalo Lomas, of the Shipibo-Conibo people, died Thursday after being shot twice near her home in Ucayali, in eastern Peru, Reuters reports .

According to the outlet, the body of Sebastian Woodroffe, of British Columbia, was recovered from a shallow grave on Saturday, less than a mile from where Lomas lived.

Video had circulated Friday on social media showing a man believed to be Woodroffe being dragged with a rope around his neck, moaning and crying out before falling silent, according to the BBC , the CBC and Reuters.

PEOPLE could not independently review this footage.

Reuters reports that Woodroffe was thought to have been one of Lomas’ clients before she was killed. According to the Washington Post , Lomas was a longtime practitioner of plant medicine.

A statement on Saturday from Peru’s Interior Ministry, translated from Spanish, confirmed Woodroffe “was killed by a mob” in connection with Lomas’ death. The statement described Woodroffe as the “main suspect” in Lomas’ shooting, though a prosecutor told Reuters no suspects had yet been named in that case and multiple theories were being probed.

The Associated Press reported on Monday that “officials backed away from initial reports that Woodroffe was the principal suspect in Arevalo’s killing.”

Arrests have apparently not been made in Woodroffe’s death. According to the BBC and Reuters, he had been strangled to death while his body also showed signs of physical trauma.

• Want to keep up with the latest crime coverage? Click here to get breaking crime news, ongoing trial coverage and details of intriguing unsolved cases in the True Crime Newsletter.

The state’s Ombudsman’s Office — which monitors and weighs in on possible human-rights infractions for Peru’s citizens — described Woodroffe’s killing as a “lynching” in a tweet posted Saturday and called for a thorough investigation of both slayings.

Further details about both homicides and Woodroffe’s status as a suspected killer were not immediately available.

In a lengthier news release , translated from Spanish, the Ombudsman’s Office described Lomas as a “promoter of the cultural rights of the Shipibo-Conibo indigenous people.”

Lomas’ family history included many other healers, according to the Post . In comments to local TV, her nephew reportedly called her “the mother that protects the Earth in the jungle.”

Peru’s ombudsman linked Lomas’ death to a broader pattern of indigenous activists and leaders being killed while facing groups who wanted to illegally mine and log in the rainforest, among other illicit activities.

The Interior Ministry said Saturday that Woodroffe’s body was taken to the city of Pucallpa and that further testing was needed to confirm if he shot Lomas.

“We will not rest until both murders, of the indigenous woman as well as the Canadian man, are solved,” Ricardo Palma Jimenez, a prosecutor in Ucayali, told Reuters.

A friend of Woodroffe spoke to the CBC and said he was skeptical Woodroffe was a killer. According to the CBC, Woodroffe was the father of a 9-year-old son.

News reports show Woodroffe wanted to study plant medicine in Peru. He apparently wrote on a fundraising page several years ago, in part: “I feel responsible trying to support this culture and retain some of their treasure in me and my family, and share it with those that wish to learn.”

In an interview with the CBC, his friend Yarrow Willard said, “He is … one of these people who likes to poke and likes to test the boundaries of people’s beliefs, but is very much a gentle person underneath all that. This man has never had a gun or talked about anything along that line.”

PEOPLE’s efforts to reach Peruvian authorities were unsuccessful on Monday. Emails sent to government officials and the national police were not immediately returned.

Canadian authorities confirmed one of their citizens had died but could not identify Woodroffe specifically.

In a statement to PEOPLE, a spokesperson for the Global Affairs Canada said, “We are aware of this case and actively seeking further information. Our officials are in touch with the family of the Canadian who has died as well as Peruvian officials.”

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Canadian lynched in Peru after being accused of shaman's death

Sebastian Woodroffe, 41, was believed to be a patient of indigenous healer Olivia Arévalo, 81

A Canadian man was beaten and lynched in the Peruvian Amazon after local people accused him of killing an 81-year-old indigenous healer, a police officer leading the murder investigation told the Guardian.

Olivia Arévalo, a female shaman with the native Shipibo-Konibo people, was shot twice and died on Thursday near her home in the village of Victoria Gracia in Peru’s central Amazon region of Ucayali.

Some villagers blamed Arévalo’s murder on a Canadian citizen Sebastian Woodroffe, 41, who lived in the region and was believed to be one of her patients.

Police found the Canadian’s body buried in a shallow grave about one kilometre (0.6 miles) from Arévalo’s home on Saturday.

A cameraphone recording of the lynching was released in the local press and on social media. The video shows a bloodied man crying out as he lies in a puddle in front of a wooden home with a thatched roof.

Two men put a rope or rubber hose around his neck and drag him along the ground until he goes limp and falls silent. A group of people, including children, look on.

General Jorge Lam, the police officer leading the double murder inquiry, said police were following several lines of investigation.

“The body had been fully identified (as that of Sebastian Woodroffe) using fingerprints,” he said.

Ronald Suárez, the highest authority of the 40,000-strong Shipibo-Konibo people, said the men responsible for the lynching had “acted on the spur of the moment and resorted to traditional justice”.

“But we are a peaceful people who have always lived in harmony with nature,” he insisted.

“We have little confidence in the police as, so often, crimes against us go unpunished,” said Suárez, who is president of the Shipibo Konibo and Xetebo council .

Arévalo was a “walking library of our traditional knowledge, the maximum expression of our culture,” he said, describing her death as “very painful”. The Shipibo Konibo people are known for their art and use of psychoactive plant brew Ayahuasca.

Arévalo’s killing follows the unsolved murders of indigenous activists who repeatedly faced death threats for protecting their ancestral lands.

Police are also examining a theory a possible motive may have been that Arévalo’s son owed money to the Canadian. There are also unconfirmed reports the killer may have been a gang member looking to collect a debt from Arévalo’s son.

Woodroffe is believed to have travelled to Peru from his home in Vancouver Island, Canada, to learn how use traditional medicine to treat drug addictions. He used the crowdfunding website Indiegogo to raise more than $2,000 to fund the trip.

Peru’s human rights Ombudsman’s office has called for an investigation, and tweeted its “empathic rejection of the lynching and murder of the alleged perpetrator of the murder of indigenous leader Olivia Arévalo”.

“Canada extends its deepest condolences following the reported assassination of‎ Olivia Arévalo Lomas, an indigenous elder and human rights defender of the Shipobo-Konibo people in Peru’s Ucayali region,” a spokesman for Canada’s foreign affairs department, said.

“We are also aware that a Canadian ‎was killed in a related incident. Consular services are being provided to the family of the Canadian.”

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Canadian killed in Peru was blamed for shaman's death: local police

Arevalo Lomas's death is said to have sparked unrest in the Ucayali region of the Peruvian Amazon rainforest. (Temple of the Way of Light via YouTube)

A 41-year-old Canadian who travelled to Peru to study hallucinogenic medicine was killed by a mob in a remote corner of the Amazon rain forest after people blamed him for the slaying of an elderly shaman, authorities said Sunday.

Peru's attorney general's office said Sebastian Woodroffe was dragged by the neck shortly after the killing of Olivia Arevalo, an octogenarian plant healer from the Shipibo-Konibo tribe of northeastern Peru. Officials backed away from initial reports that Woodroffe was the principal suspect in Arevalo's killing.

Arevalo and Woodroffe were both killed Thursday in the indigenous community of Victoria Gracia, officials said. But police did not begin to investigate until a cellphone video appeared in local media showing a man purported to be Woodroffe begging for mercy while being dragged between thatch-roofed homes. He was then left motionless on the muddy ground.

On Saturday, officials dug up Woodroffe's body from an unmarked grave where he had been hastily buried.

Every year thousands of foreign tourists travel to the Peruvian Amazon to experiment with ayahuasca, a bitter, dark-colored brew made of a mixture of native plants. The hallucinogenic cocktail, also known as yage, has been venerated for centuries by indigenous tribes in Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia as a cure for all sorts of ailments. But it's also increasingly consumed by Western tourists looking for mind-altering experiences, sometimes with deadly consequences.

Arevalo was a staunch defender of indigenous people's rights in the region. She also practiced a traditional form of singing medicine that the Shipibo believe removes negative energies from individuals and a group alike.

She can be heard singing a traditional plant song on the website of the Temple of the Way of Lights, which describes itself as a plant-shamanic healing centre in the Peruvian Amazon.

In 2015, a Canadian fatally stabbed a fellow tourist from England after the two drank ayahuasca together in a spiritual ceremony a few hours' drive from where Woodroffe was killed.

Woodroffe, from the town of Courtenay on Victoria island in British Columbia, said before going to Peru that he hoped an apprenticeship with a plant healer from the Shipibo tribe would help his goal of changing careers to become an addiction counsellor using hallucinogenic medicine.

"The plant medicine I have the opportunity of learning is far deeper than ingesting a plant and being healed. It is not about getting 'high' either. It is true some of the plants I will be learning about do have a perception-altering effect, but these are a few plants out of thousands I will be working with," he wrote on the Indiegogo crowd-funding website seeking financial help to advance his studies.

"I am in this for the long haul. This is more than a 'job' to me. I want not only for people to recover ... I want to turn them on to the wonders of existence, and have them leave as a renewed friend and lover of this thing we call life," he added.

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LIMA, Peru — A 41-year-old Canadian who travelled to Peru to study hallucinogenic medicine was killed by a mob in a remote corner of the Amazon rain forest after people blamed him for the slaying of an elderly shaman, authorities said Sunday.

Peru’s attorney general’s office said Sebastian Woodroffe was dragged by the neck shortly after the killing of Olivia Arevalo, an octogenarian plant healer from the Shipibo-Konibo tribe of northeastern Peru. Officials backed away from initial reports that Woodroffe was the principal suspect in Arevalo’s killing.

Canadian lynched in Peru after he was suspected of killing shaman Back to video

Arevalo and Woodroffe were both killed Thursday in the indigenous community of Victoria Gracia, officials said. But police did not begin to investigate until a cellphone video appeared in local media showing a man purported to be Woodroffe begging for mercy while being dragged between thatch-roofed homes. He was then left motionless on the muddy ground.

Espanto en la Amazonía: dos muertes violentas han azotado #Yarinacocha . ¿Qué ha ocurrido en los últimos tres días en este distrito de #Ucayali ? Te invitamos a leer este hilo para conocer más sobre los casos ► https://t.co/SVVNAy7fsD Por @AliciARojas (1/26) pic.twitter.com/pQN5B5nwYV — Perú El Comercio (@PeruECpe) April 22, 2018

On Saturday, officials dug up Woodroffe’s body from an unmarked grave where he had been hastily buried.

Every year thousands of foreign tourists travel to the Peruvian Amazon to experiment with ayahuasca, a bitter, dark-colored brew made of a mixture of native plants. The hallucinogenic cocktail, also known as yage, has been venerated for centuries by indigenous tribes in Brazil, Peru, Ecuador and Colombia as a cure for all sorts of ailments. But it’s also increasingly consumed by Western tourists looking for mind-altering experiences, sometimes with deadly consequences.

Arevalo was a staunch defender of indigenous people’s rights in the region. She also practiced a traditional form of singing medicine that the Shipibo believe removes negative energies from individuals and a group alike.

She can be heard singing a traditional plant song on the website of the Temple of the Way of Lights, which describes itself as a plant-shamanic healing centre in the Peruvian Amazon.

In 2015, a Canadian fatally stabbed a fellow tourist from England after the two drank ayahuasca together in a spiritual ceremony a few hours’ drive from where Woodroffe was killed.

Woodroffe, from the town of Courtenay on Victoria island in British Columbia, said before going to Peru that he hoped an apprenticeship with a plant healer from the Shipibo tribe would help his goal of changing careers to become an addiction counsellor using hallucinogenic medicine.

“The plant medicine I have the opportunity of learning is far deeper than ingesting a plant and being healed. It is not about getting ’high’ either. It is true some of the plants I will be learning about do have a perception-altering effect, but these are a few plants out of thousands I will be working with,” he wrote on the Indiegogo crowd-funding website seeking financial help to advance his studies.

“I am in this for the long haul. This is more than a ’job’ to me. I want not only for people to recover … I want to turn them on to the wonders of existence, and have them leave as a renewed friend and lover of this thing we call life,” he added.

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clock This article was published more than  6 years ago

Canadian dies in ‘lynching’ in Peruvian Amazon, accused of killing an indigenous shaman

It was 2013 when Sebastian Woodroffe decided to quit his job and leave his home in Canada to study plant medicine in Peru. A relative’s battle with alcoholism had inspired him to “fix the family’s spirit” and pursue a career as an addictions counselor, he said in a YouTube video .

Woodroffe, then a 36-year-old father of a 4-year-old boy, began raising money for an apprenticeship with traditional healers in the Amazon. He felt a responsibility to “support this culture and retain some of their treasure in me and my family, and share it with those that wish to learn,” he wrote on a fundraising page . He was particularly interested in experiencing ayahuasca, a sludgelike hallucinogenic potion used by indigenous shamans in spiritual exercises.

It’s not entirely clear what happened in the years that followed, or whether the Canadian tourist found the healing he was seeking in the Peruvian Amazon. But late last week, his name and face somehow landed on a  wanted poster  that accused him of killing a beloved shaman and indigenous activist in a remote rain forest in northeastern Peru.

Enraged members of the indigenous community appear to have taken matters into their own hands. Peruvian authorities say a mob of locals in the Amazonian region of Ucayali killed Woodroffe before burying him in a makeshift grave. Peru’s ombudsman described the killing as a “lynching.”

A gruesome cellphone video that emerged in local news outlets shows a man — later identified by officials as Woodroffe — being dragged through the mud by a cord wrapped around his neck. He moans and pleads for mercy before lying motionless in the dirt.

Police found the buried body and identified it as Woodroffe’s, Peru’s interior ministry said in a statement Saturday, vowing to aggressively investigate his killing and that of the shaman, Olivia Arévalo Lomas, a respected member of the Shipibo-Konibo tribe who was in her 80s.

Woodroffe’s body was buried less than a mile from Arévalo’s home, and an autopsy revealed that he died by strangulation after being beaten, Ricardo Palma Jimenez, the head of a group of prosecutors in Ucayali, told Reuters. His body has been taken to a morgue in the nearby town of Pucallpa, the interior ministry said.

“We want the people of the Amazon to know that there is justice,” Jimenez told a Peruvian TV news station, “but not justice by their own hands.”

The killing of Arévalo, a respected indigenous-rights activist, spurred outrage within her tribe and across Peru, particularly in light of many recent unsolved killings of environmental and human rights activists in the region. The Amazon was cited as one of the regions worldwide with the most killings of activists, particularly indigenous activists, according to a 2016 study by the environmental watchdog group Global Witness . These disputes often arise over mining, agribusiness, logging and dam projects.

Locals told an indigenous news outlet that witnesses saw Woodroffe shoot Arévalo multiple times after she sang an ikaro, or curing song. He then fled, local residents alleged, prompting Arévalo’s family members to post a “wanted” bulletin online and on Facebook, showing Woodroffe’s photo, identifying him by name and nationality, and offering a reward.

Between 2009 and 2011, Arévalo worked on ayahuasca “retreats” at a traditional healing center in Iquitos, Peru called Temple of the Way of Light, according to the business. She had been working with traditional plant medicine since the age of 15, and came from a long line of healers, the center wrote alongside a YouTube video that shows her singing one of her curing songs.

Ricardo Franco, Arévalo’s nephew, described her to a Peruvian TV station as “the mother that protects the Earth in the jungle” and “the most beloved woman” in the tribe.

Ayahuasca retreats have become immensely popular among foreign tourists. Each year, thousands of people travel to the Peruvian Amazon to experiment with the hallucinogenic brew, also known as yage and referred to by some locals as “the sacred vine of the soul.”

The potion contains dimethyltryptamine, a powerful hallucinogen that is legal in Peru only as part of spiritual exercises. Tourists from the United States, Australia, Canada and beyond flock to these jungle villages to participate in ayahuasca rituals in the hopes that the treatment might heal anything from depression to childhood trauma, The Washington Post reported in 2010. These retreats have created a booming tourism industry in the region.

But the growing number of tourists in the town has added to mounting frustrations that a double standard exists in the way indigenous people are treated in the criminal justice system, local residents told Peruvian news broadcasters.

“There is justice for those with money,” one local resident, Alder Rengifo Torres, told TV Peru .

“A foreigner can come and kill us, day after day, like dogs or cats, and nothing happens. The state does nothing,” one local woman was captured on television telling a Peruvian vice minister who visited the indigenous community over the weekend.

A Peruvian ombudsman wrote tweets condemning the killing of Arévalo, “a promoter of the cultural rights of the Shipibo-Conibo indigenous people.” He urged the government to protect indigenous people “in the face of an increase in illicit activities that put their lives at risk.”

But the ombudsman’s office also expressed its “resounding rejection of the lynching and murder of the alleged perpetrator” of Arévalo’s killing, adding: “We ask the authorities for an in-depth investigation.”

In his online fundraising campaign to study in Peru, Woodroffe spoke of wanting to make several trips to the Amazon to “keep learning, bringing them love and friendship, and building community.” He said he had already begun to learn Spanish but was “not yet adept enough to go without a translator there with me daily.”

“Acceptance of their wisdom’s potency will bring value to the Shipibo, who are under threat from modernization and industry, helping preserve their eroding perch in the Amazon,” Woodroffe wrote.

Reached by The Post, Woodroffe’s relative said his family declined to comment. His friend Yarrow Willard told the Canadian Broadcasting Corp . that Woodroffe grew up in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island. He worked odd jobs in recent years and did some professional diving.

Willard said Woodroffe had become more distant after trying ayahuasca in Peru and came back “troubled” from his retreats there.

He described Woodroffe as a person “who likes to poke, and likes to test the boundaries of people’s beliefs, but is very much a gentle person underneath all that.” He found it hard to believe that his friend would ever be involved in a violent crime. “He had a beautiful spark to him that people respected and loved.”

“This man has never had a gun or talked about anything along that line,” Willard told the CBC. He suggested that Woodroffe may have become a scapegoat.

“We’ve just been in shock,” Willard said. “It just felt like a scam because there is no way this person is capable of that.”

Clarification:  Olivia Arévalo Lomas had not worked at the Temple of the Way of Light since 2011.

In Peru's Amazon, a Shaman Is Killed, Then a Tourist Lynched

The death of a Canadian man is making headlines for its location, manner, and the murkiness around it. The body of Sebastian Woodroffe was found in a shallow grave Saturday in the Ucayali region of Peru's Amazon by police who began searching for the 41-year-old after a video was posted to social media that showed him being dragged on the ground with a rope around his neck until his body goes limp. One early theory, according to local media and a police officer who spoke with the Guardian , is that he was killed over the murder of Olivia Arévalo, an octogenarian shaman from the Shipibo-Konibo tribe who was shot dead Thursday. Woodroffe's body was buried a little more than half-a-mile from the site where she was killed, and he was thought to be one of her clients.

But while one potential motive being investigated is that Arévalo's son owed Woodroffe money, another theory is that the same son owed money to a gang member who pulled the trigger. And the AP says authorities have "backed away" from reports that Woodroffe is even a suspect. The BBC reports Woodroffe had been in Peru previously to try the hallucinogen ayahuasca, and that he was looking to start a new career involving the use of "plant medicine" in drug addiction treatment. The Guardian cites a years-old Indiegogo campaign that helped fund a trip from his Vancouver Island home to Peru; on the campaign page he referenced a relative's alcohol addiction and wrote, "Traditional Detox Centres have a 5-8% success rate. Unacceptable." The CBC reports Woodroffe, who was apparently also killed Thursday, leaves behind a 9-year-old son. (More lynching stories.)

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Kill or be killed: Canadian describes deadly ceremony gone wrong in Peru

The Canadian man who killed a British tourist in Peru says he was forced to do it to protect his own life and the lives of two others.

Joshua Andrew Freeman Stevens says he killed Unais Gomes in December, after Gomes tried to stab him at a ceremony involving hallucinogens.

"I really thought I was going to die," Stevens, 29, told CTV Winnipeg on Tuesday. He added that Gomes, a 25-year-old British tourist, had been a friend of his, and he deeply regrets what happened.

Stevens was allowed to return to his home in Winnipeg after the incident last month, at a rainforest retreat called Phoenix Ayahuasca, near the town of Iquitos in Peru.

Stevens said Gomes had taken a double dose of a hallucinogenic drink called ayahuasca, after which he became unstable.

"I could hear him screaming the name Yahweh, and I was very concerned because he was screaming it, just screaming it at the top of his lungs," Stevens said, recalling the incident.

He says he approached Gomes to see if he was alright, at which point Gomes started shouting: "You are Yahweh, you are Yahweh, and it's time to get your demons out, brother. It's time to get your demons out."

Then, Stevens says Gomes attacked. So, Stevens said, he ran to the kitchen of the retreat to find help, but Gomes followed him and tried to attack him with a kitchen knife. Stevens said he used a steel pot to defend himself.

"He swiped at me and he hit the table, and his knife broke, and I went to hit him with the pot, and I hit him in the side of the body and my pot broke," he said.

Gomes dropped the first knife and went for a butcher's knife, so Stevens tried to wrestle it away from him. Two staffers from the retreat then joined the fight, and Stevens was able to get the knife away from Gomes in the struggle. However, Gomes soon began attacking the workers, and Stevens feared he would kill them, he said.

"What I said to myself was if he gets this knife back, he's either going to kill me or the other two men here," Stevens said. "And that's when I made the decision to stab him."

Stevens said he stabbed Gomes twice, killing him.

Peruvian police arrested Stevens after the incident, and held him for 24 hours before releasing him. Police reportedly ruled the killing an act of self-defence.

Stevens was later allowed to return home to Winnipeg, although he may be summoned back to Peru if the case goes to trial, he said.

The Canadian man says he and Gomes were good friends.

"He said we were going to be lifelong friends, him and I," Stevens said, while choking back tears.

The owners of Phoenix Ayahuasca describe it as a "shamanic healing retreat" on their website.

In a statement posted online , owner Tracie Thornberry said she could not say much about the killing until the police investigation is complete.

"We are deeply shocked and saddened by what happened at our center," Thornberry wrote. "Our thoughts and prayers are with the two boys, Unais and Joshua, and with their families.

"I have full faith in our staff to act appropriately even in difficult situations. Unfortunately their physical intervention could not prevent this tragedy."

The hallucinogenic brew called ayahuasca, or yage, has been used for centuries by indigenous tribes in South America for its alleged healing properties. It has also become popular among Western tourists for the mind-altering experiences it can provide.

Stevens said he went to the retreat in search of a cure for a skin condition.

Joshua Andrew Freeman Stevens shares his story of what led to him killing a man at an ayahuasca retreat in Peru during an exclusive interview with CTV News in Winnipeg on Jan. 12, 2016.

Joshua Andrew Freeman Stevens is seen in a police truck in Peru after allegedly stabbing a British tourist to death after drinking a hallucinogenic brew.

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Canadians in Peru growing anxious about how to get home as civil unrest deepens

'all of us just want to get home in time for christmas with our families,' tourist says.

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Carolina Medina arrived in Peru on Dec. 3. But the Canadian tourist would soon be caught in the country's political crossfire, as just four days later, its president's removal from office ignited a wave of protests across the South American nation.

Medina, who is from Mississauga, Ont., told CBC News in a direct message that she and a group of other Canadians are currently stuck in the southwestern city of Arequipa.

• Are you a Canadian currently in Peru? We want to speak with you for an upcoming story. Email us at [email protected]

Some tourists have tried to cross borders into different cities — and even into neighbouring Bolivia — but road blockades by protesters have made it difficult to do so without the threat of violence or getting stuck, she said.

"Other tourists have also experienced getting robbed on the road, and there have been many looting [incidents] happening within the city near our hotel," she said.

"All of us just want to get home in time for Christmas with our families."

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Medina, who is among thousands of Canadians currently in Peru, has criticized Ottawa's response to what she says is an increasingly dangerous situation.

Some have tried to leave the country since the protests began, but violent confrontations have crippled travel routes and airports.

Ottawa 'actively engaged,' but tourist disagrees

There are just over 3,900 Canadians currently in Peru, but that number accounts only for those who are officially registered with the Registration of Canadians Abroad (ROCA) database, a voluntary service.

The Canadian government updated its  travel advisory this week urging Canadians to exercise a high degree of caution in travel to Peru.

Airports in such cities as Arequipa, Ayacucho and Juliaca are among those that have suspended travel until further notice.

Jason Kung, a spokesperson for Global Affairs Canada, told CBC News in an emailed statement that consular officials are "actively engaged with the situation in Peru and continue to monitor the situation closely." No further details were given.

Kung said the government is advising Canadians in Peru to avoid areas where demonstrations are taking place, not cross road blockades, even if they're unattended, and follow the instructions of local authorities — including obeying the curfew that was implemented in 15 Peruvian provinces this week.

The government is also asking Canadians in Peru to contact  Canada's Emergency Watch and Response Centre and to register with ROCA . 

Protests in Peru over ouster of former president Pedro Castillo

But Medina said she thinks the Canadian government is failing citizens who have yet to be evacuated from violent circumstances.

She said that upon contacting the Canadian Embassy in Peru, she was told only to stay put. She had previously spoken with tourists from Germany and Britain who were evacuated from the country by their governments.

It echoes a similar grievance from March 2020, when Canadians encountered difficulties leaving Peru during its COVID-19 lockdown as they watched other citizens receive assistance.

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"We received an email that they have four flights leaving from [Cusco], but they are prioritizing different groups of tourists, so no one really knows when we will be able to fly home," Medina said.

Jennifer Korver and Heather Vitkuske were among other Canadians stuck in Arequipa.

"We feel the safest when we're at the hotel and we don't go very far,"  Korver told CBC News in an interview earlier this week.

Vitkuske said the two miss their families. "It's hard coping with the uncertainty."

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Castillo was ousted and arrested on Dec. 7 after he attempted to dissolve Peru's congress and announced that he would rule by decree. The left-wing political leader was impeached for "permanent moral incapacity" and arrested on charges of rebellion.

His successor, former vice-president Dina Boluarte, characterized Castillo's actions as a coup attempt, though some have rejected  that description.

At least 20 people have died during the protests in response to Castillo's removal from office, with 500 civilians and security forces among the injured. The protesters are calling for Boluarte's resignation and Castillo's freedom.

But Boluarte rejected calls to resign on Saturday. During a news conference, she criticized the country's congress for not voting for her proposal to move up Peru's scheduled general elections from 2026 to 2023.

Peru has a long history of presidential corruption, but the Andean country has especially been embattled in the last seven years, as various political crises and a high turnover rate between presidents have crippled congress.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jenna Benchetrit is a senior writer with the business content unit at CBC News. She has also covered entertainment and education stories. A Montrealer based in Toronto, Jenna holds a master's degree in journalism from Toronto Metropolitan University. You can reach her at [email protected].

With files from The Associated Press

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Canadian family receives wrong body after father died on Cuban vacation

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LAVAL, Quebec (AP) — A family in Quebec is searching for answers after discovering that their father’s remains didn’t make it to Canada from Cuba, where he died while on vacation, and instead received the remains of another man.

Funerals for Faraj Allah Jarjour were scheduled for Sunday and Monday. Instead, his daughter Miriam Jarjour had been desperately calling and emailing as many officials as she can, trying to find his body.

“Up until now we have no answers,” Jarjour said. “Where is my father?”

Jarjour said she was swimming with her 68-year-old father in the ocean near Varadero, Cuba, during a family vacation on March 22 when he suddenly had a heart attack and died.

Because there were no medical facilities, his body was covered and left on a beach chair in the hot sun for more than eight hours until a car arrived to take it to Havana, Jarjour said.

After that, it’s not clear what happened.

Jarjour said she followed the directions given to her by the Canadian consulate, and paid $10,000 Canadian (US$7,300) to have the body returned home to the family.

However, the casket that arrived late last week contained the body of a Russian man who was at least 20 years younger than Jarjour’s father. Unlike her father, the body also had a full head of hair and tattoos.

Jarjour said the stranger’s body has been sent to his country, but she and her family don’t know where her father is.

When Jarjour contacted Canada’s consular authorities in Cuba, they blamed the company in the island that coordinates the return of the remains. Since then, she says she has been emailing other government officials, including her Member of Parliament, who has agreed to reach out to Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly.

“I’m honestly destroyed,” said Jarjour. “Up until now we have no answers. We’re waiting. I don’t know what to tell you.”

Jarjour described her father as an active man who didn’t smoke or drink. The Syrian-born family man was “always smiling,” she said.

The ordeal has left her mother exhausted, said Jarjour. She and her brother are struggling through their own grief while trying to get answers from authorities who all seem to deny responsibility.

So far, the family has spent $25,000 Canadian (US$18,248), including $15,000 Canadian (US$10,950) for funeral services that have been put on hold.

Global Affairs Canada said in an email that consular officials are working with Cuban authorities and the family to resolve the issue.

But Jarjour doesn’t feel she is getting the answers she needs and is hoping Joly will personally intervene to pressure Cuban authorities.

“What I want is someone to help me find my father,” she said.