BRASILIA (Reuters) – Brazil will step up efforts to remove the remaining gold miners from indigenous lands after a shooting attack by invaders that killed a Yanomami indigenous person and seriously injured two others, the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples said on Sunday.
One man was killed and two others seriously injured by miners in Saturday’s attack on Yanomami territory, where authorities are expelling illegal miners who have invaded Brazil’s largest indigenous reserve, the size of Portugal.
“We will continue the operation to remove all the prospectors who are still there illegally,” said the Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara, to GloboNews.
She said that 75% to 80% of the more than 20,000 miners who invaded the reserve were evicted, and those who are still there are resisting removal more violently.
“They have to understand that they have to leave and that the State is not going to give up evicting them”, said the Minister of the Environment, Marina Silva, in the same interview.
“We will step up the operation,” she said, adding that the armed forces could be mobilized to finish the job.
Marina said that 300 mines were dismantled, 20 planes and a helicopter destroyed by Ibama agents.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva promised when he took office in January to remove the garimpeiros whose presence has caused a humanitarian crisis by spreading disease and causing malnutrition among the Yanomami by reducing their hunting and poisoning rivers and fish with mercury.
A full-scale enforcement operation was launched in February, and most miners began to leave or were forced to leave.
Federal Police said they are investigating the clash between miners and indigenous people and are working to identify, locate and arrest those responsible for the shooting.
On Twitter, the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples reported that an inter-ministerial delegation is on its way to Roraima to “further reinforce actions to remove criminals”.
Since Lula took office in January, his government has announced moves to remove thousands of illegal miners from the country’s largest indigenous reserve.
However, “many coordinated actions are still needed,” the ministry said, noting that it requested support from the Ministry of Justice to investigate the shooting.
The Federal Police said in a statement that they knew that indigenous people would have clashed with miners on Saturday.
The Yanomami people, estimated to number around 28,000, face a humanitarian crisis, including disease, sexual abuse and violence, due to the invasion of more than 20,000 miners in their region, leading to malnutrition and deaths.
(Reporting by Marcela Ayres)
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