Human rights organisations in Brazil are clamouring for justice following the murder of a Black community activist who had been receiving threats.

Maria Bernadete Pacífico, a community and religious leader in the Pitanga dos Palmares quilombo – an Afro-Brazilian settlement of descendants of escaped slaves in the north-east state of Bahia – was killed on Thursday evening.

The 72-year-old, known as Mãe Bernadete (Mother Bernadete), had spent years demanding answers for the unsolved murder of her son Fábio Gabriel Pacífico, who was gunned down outside the community’s school in 2017.

She was killed on Thursday when two men wearing helmets entered her house and reportedly fired more than a dozen shots at her face.