Bishops' council denounce killing of 23-year-old Indigenous man in Brazil
By Eduardo Campos Lima
Sep 24, 2024
|Contributor
SÃO PAULO – A series of police attacks on Indigenous communities that have been struggling for their traditional territories have resulted in one death and a number of injured members of the Guarani Kaiowá group last week in Mato Grosso do Sul state of Brazil, near the border with Paraguay.
Activists of the Bishops’ Conference’s Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) traveled to Geneva, Switzerland, this week in order to speak to the United Nations Human Rights Council about the systematic violations suffered by the Guarani Kaiowá in Brazil.
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On Sept. 18, a new armed attack from the police caused the death of Neri Ramos da Silva, a 23-year-old Guarani Kaiowá man. Part of the group saw policemen dragging da Silva’s body to a . nearby forest area. They acted quickly and were able to recover their relative’s body. Da Silva had a 11-month-old baby.
On Sept. 23, members of the Guarani Kaiowá people discovered the body of 15-year-old Fred Souza Garcete. He was riding a motorcycle between two villages located inside of the Indigenous territory when he went missing. His head had signs of violence. The police claimed that Garcete suffered an accident. His relatives and friends doubt it.
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According to CIMI agents, the state police have been respecting only the farmers’ interests and have been treating the Indigenous people with extreme violence.
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Flávio Machado, a CIMI local missionary in the nearby city of Dourados, explained to Crux that the Guarani Kaiowá have had their lands progressively stolen since the end of the Paraguay war, in 1870, when Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay imposed to Paraguay a new border, one that divided the territories of the Guarani Kaiowá between Paraguay and in Brazil.
More:
https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-americas/2024/09/bishops-council-denounce-killing-of-23-year-old-indigenous-man-in-brazil