BRASILIA (Reuters) – Two Yanomami men were killed with shotguns by gold rush miners on their reservation in the northern Amazon region, according to a statement released yesterday by the tribe, the largest in Brazil that is relatively isolated from the outside world.
The Yanomami are imploring Brazil’s government to evict more than 20,000 miners illegally prospecting for gold on their land in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, which has infected more than 160 and killed five members of the tribe.
The Hutukara Yanomami Association said a group of its people approached a mining camp on June 12 to ask for food in the mountainous Serra de Parima region, a remote corner of the vast reservation on the Venezuelan border in Roraima state.
A court last week ordered Funai to reopen three abandoned posts for monitoring the reservation and work to remove the gold miners due to the risk that they are spreading coronavirus among tribes with no immunity or access to healthcare.
Indigenous rights organisation Survival International called on Brazilian authorities to take urgent and decisive action to remove the illegal gold miners and bring to justice those responsible for the killings.
