BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil will increase efforts to remove the remainder of wildcat miners from indigenous lands following a shooting attack by invaders that killed a Yanomami indigenous person and left two others seriously injured, the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples said on Sunday.
An inter-ministerial delegation is en route to Roraima state to “further reinforce actions to remove criminals,” the ministry said on Twitter.
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Since President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva took office in January, its administration has announced actions to remove thousands of illegal miners from the country’s largest indigenous reservation in northern Brazil.
However, “many coordinated actions are still needed,” the ministry said, noting it has requested support from the Ministry of Justice to investigate the shooting.
Federal Police said in a note it was aware that indigenous individuals allegedly clashed with miners on Saturday. The authorities are working to identify, locate and apprehend those responsible for the crimes, it added.
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The Yanomami people, estimated to number about 28,000, have faced a humanitarian crisis, including disease, sexual abuse and violence, due to the invasion of over 20,000 miners in their region, leading to malnutrition and deaths.
Lula’s government declared a medical emergency for the Yanomamis earlier this year and pledged zero tolerance for mining on indigenous reservation land protected by Brazil’s Constitution.
