An elite unit is on a mission to expel the illegal miners who devastated Yanomami territory during Bolsonaro’s presidency
As Finger’s aircraft swooped down into a muddy clearing beside a Yanomami village, a handful of those miners scurried into the forest in their wellies in an attempt to avoid capture.
The group’s agents gathered early last Friday at a camp on the Uraricoera River – one of the main arteries miners use to invade the territory, which is the size of Portugal and where about 30,000 Yanomami live in more than 300 villages. The miners had fled, abandoning their equipment in a muddy pit where a small brook once flowed. “They left in a hurry – just a few days ago,” Finger said as his crew trudged through their deserted encampment.
Yanomami villagers carry away the supplies from an illegal mining camp raided by environmental troops near the village of Xitei.Dário Kopenawa, a prominent Yanomami leader, compared the environmental desecration to leishmaniasis, a disease carried by sand flies that causes horrific skin lesions and ulcers.
Nearby, Finger’s team chased down one fugitive miner, a former butcher named Edmilson Dias from the mid-western state of Goiás. The boss predicted Lula’s clampdown would fade after six months, allowing miners to resume their multimillion dollar activities in more than 200 pits. But Lula allies are adamant they have come to the Yanomami territory to stay.
Bruce Albert, an anthropologist who has worked with the Yanomami since the 70s, when miners first stormed their territory, accused Bolsonaro of seeking to “totally annihilate” the Yanomami by sabotaging efforts to shield the lands they are thought to have inhabited for thousands of years.
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