Indigenous men kill Brazilian official with arrow

Activist and government official Rieli Franciscato was shot with an arrow while trying to investigate sightings of the Cautario River isolated group in the Amazon rainforest, Brazilian authorities said on Thursday.

Franciscato and a patrol of military police were moving closer to the group in a reservation near the Bolivian border. The party was then targeted with arrows, prompting them to seek shelter behind a vehicle, but the 56-year-old activist was hit near the heart.

“He cried out, pulled the arrow from his chest, ran 50 meters and collapsed, lifeless,” one of the officers said on social media.

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Franciscato worked for the government’s indigenous affairs agency Funai, trying to set up reservations to protect uncontacted tribes. He was one of the leading experts in his area nationwide, and a proponent of peaceful coexistence.

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‘A war party’

The tribe he was trying to approach was known as largely peaceful, local photojournalist Gabriel Uchida told the AFP news agency.

“The last time they appeared in the region was in June,” he told the French news agency. “It was a larger group, very peaceful. They even left presents at someone’s house.”

However, indigenous groups in the Amazon sometimes use violence to retaliate against poachers, illegal miners, or illegal loggers, who enter their territory.

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“This time, there were just five armed men — a war party,” indicating they were seeking revenge, according to Uchida.

Some 100 isolated tribes still live in the Amazon rainforest. Brazilian NGO Kaninde, which Franciscato helped found in the 1980s, said the tribes had no ability to tell the difference between friends and foes from the outside world.

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“Rieli dedicated his life to the indigenous cause,” said Ricardo Lopes Dias, an official from the Funai agency. “He had more than three decades of service, and leaves and immense legacy for the protection of these peoples.”

dj/sms (AFP, Reuters, dpa)

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