RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Funai employee Maxciel Pereira dos Santos was shot dead on Friday night in Tabatinga (AM), on the border with Peru and Colombia. He worked at an indigenous organization base in the Javari Valley, which has been attacked four times since last year.
The crime occurred around 6:50 PM, according to the State Police. Santos was riding his motorcycle on Avenida da Amizade, the busiest in Tabatinga, when he was shot twice in the back of the head. His wife and stepdaughter witnessed the murder.
Santos had been working for 12 years in the Javari Valley Ethno-environmental Protection Front, invariably in surveillance and inspection activities. Despite not being tenured, he had already held several positions and was being appointed to a new position.
The Civil Police opened an inquiry to investigate the case, but reported that there is still not enough information on the motivation of the crime. The Federal Police are investigating whether the murder is related to Santos’ work at FUNAI.
The employee worked mainly at the Ituí-Itacoaí base, which operates on a ferry and is about 40 km from the city of Atalaia do Norte. The aim of the base is to prevent invaders from entering an area identified as having the largest presence of isolated indigenous people in the world.
The most recent attack was on July 19th. Clandestine hunters opened fire on the base, where there were about 12 FUNAI employees and indigenous – Santos was not there that day. No one was injured.
Days after the attack, the Army and a FUNAI team seized about 300 yellow-spotted river turtles and 40,000 eggs from illegal poachers inside the 8.5 million hectare Vale do Javari Indigenous Land and about 5,000 Indians from seven different ethnic groups, as well as 11 groups of isolated people.
People close to Santos say, on the condition of anonymity, that he was committed to working in the Javari Valley and suspect that the motive behind the murder is his actions against poachers and other invaders.