BRASILIA – Illegal loggers in the Amazon ambushed an indigenous group that was formed to protect the forest, shooting dead a young warrior and wounding another, leaders of the Guajajara tribe in northern Brazil said.
Paulo Paulino Guajajara was hunting on Friday inside the Arariboia reservation in Maranhao state when he was attacked and shot in the head. Another Guajajara, Laercio, was wounded but escaped, the tribe said on Saturday.
Brazil’s federal police said they had sent a team to investigate Paulino’s death. His body was still lying in the forest where he was killed, according to Brazil’s indigenous organization APIB.
The Guajajaras, one of Brazil’s largest indigenous groups with around 20,000 people, set up the “Guardians of the Forest” here in 2012 to patrol a vast reservation.
“There is so much destruction of nature happening, good trees with wood as hard as steel being cut down and taken away.” Paulino said last September.
“We have to preserve this life for our children’s future,” he added.(Reuters)
