An illegal gold rush is igniting attacks on Indigenous people in the Amazon
Indigenous communities and isolated tribes in Brazil are under threat as the government moves to legalize mining, logging, and industrial farming.
As tensions between illegal gold miners and Indigenous communities erupt into open violence in the Brazilian Amazon, legislators allied with right-wing president Jair Bolsonaro are aggressively pursuing measures aimed at curtailing protections of the territories and rights of Indigenous people.
Since mid-May, prospectors have launched a series of brazen attacks against Yanomami and Munduruku communities in the states of Roraima and Pará respectively.
Indigenous leaders believe their communities are facing the most perilous moment since Brazil returned to democracy in the 1980s, after more than 20 years of military dictatorship. Death threats and intimidation are daily occurrences in some areas, and Munduruku leaders say their people are living in a “state of war.”
Miners and their Indigenous collaborators in the Munduruku Indigenous Territory
