An operation by Brazilian authorities succeeded in destroying an illegal mining area in Yanomami indigenous territory on Saturday (February 11). Images captured by Reuters showed helicopters intercepting a raft of illegal miners and revealing the area where they were working. The area had been discovered the day before (February 10) during a flyover by agents of the operation coordinated by the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, the Ministry of the Environment, the government’s indigenous affairs agency (FUNAI), the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA), the National Force and the Federal Police.
The Brazilian government is fighting wildcat mining on Yanomami land in the Amazon, its largest indigenous reservation, amid a humanitarian crisis blamed on illegal gold miners.
More than 20,000 miners invaded the reservation, bringing disease, sexual abuse, and armed violence that has terrified the Yanomamis, estimated to be about 28,000 in number, and led to severe malnutrition and deaths.
The Yanomami have long lived in isolation on a vast reservation the size of Portugal on the border with Venezuela. Their mineral-rich lands have attracted wildcat miners for decades, especially after a military government built a road through the Amazon rainforest in the 1970s.
Ex-president Jair Bolsonaro advocated mining on protected indigenous lands, and his government turned a blind eye to a renewed surge in invasions of reservations by wildcat miners and illegal loggers.
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