Brazil steps up gold miner removal on Yanomami land after shooting

The Brazilian government assured the Yanomami people on Sunday that it will redouble efforts to remove the remainder of the wildcat miners in the reservation following the fatal shooting of a member of the indigenous community.

Gold miners killed one man and seriously injured two others in an attack on Saturday in the Yanomami territory, where authorities have been evicting illegal miners who invaded Brazil's largest indigenous reservation, the size of Portugal.

"We will continue the operation to remove all the miners that are still there illegally," Minister of Indigenous People Sonia Guajajara told GloboNews television channel.

She said about 80% of the more than 20,000 gold miners that invaded the reservation had been evicted and those still there were resisting removal more violently.

"They must understand that they have to leave and that the state will not retreat from evicting them," Environment Minister Marina Silva said in the same interview.

"We will intensify the operation," she said, adding that the armed forces could be deployed to finish the job.

She said 300 mining camps had been dismantled, and 20 planes and one helicopter destroyed by agents of the environmental protection agency Ibama.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva vowed when he took office in January to remove the miners, whose presence caused a humanitarian crisis by spreading disease and causing malnutrition among the Yanomami by reducing their game and poisoning rivers.

A large-scale enforcement operation was launched in February and most miners began to leave or were forced to go.

Federal Police said they were investigating the clash between miners and indigenous people and were working to find and arrest those responsible for the shootings.

Lula has pledged zero tolerance for mining on indigenous land protected by the Constitution and the environmental protection agency is planning eviction operations on five other reservations when illegal logging and mining increased under previous President Jair Bolsonaro.