Brazil's agency for indigenous peoples has sent off a rare and high-risk expedition hoping to contact a small, isolated group in the Amazon and reunite its members with some of their relatives, saying the move is necessary to avoid bloodshed in an area near the border with Peru.
A team of nearly two dozen sponsored by the FUNAI agency headed up the Coari River over the weekend looking for the group of at least 22 people who are members of the widespread Korubo indigenous community and live in the Javari valley, in the northern state of Amazonas. Brazil's army, federal police and health ministry are backing the initiative, which could take weeks.
The initiative is the agency's first major operation during the administration of President Jair Bolsonaro, a far-right former army captain who pledged to stop demarcation of indigenous lands and allow miners to operate in their lands. The Matis contacted the Korubos in 2013, initially in a friendly manner, but in the following year there was a deadly clash between the two groups, FUNAI said. After that incident, some of the Korubos migrated from the area, and reported that those who stayed mistakenly believed their relatives had been killed by the Matis. Some of the Korubos who left are in FUNAI's expedition.
"There has already been conflict and death," Pereira told The Associated Press and three other media organizations at the FUNAI office in Brazil's capital. "This proximity of 20 kilometres between them is a catastrophic scenario. If there is a new confrontation with the Matis, the Korubos will respond in their traditional way: violence."
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