This content was published on April 8, 2023 – 17:45
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Brasilia, Apr 8 (EFE).- The Brazilian Air Force (FAB) destroyed a small plane used for illegal mining in the Yanomami indigenous territory, after the definitive closure of the airspace in that region, the institution reported this Saturday.
The night operation was carried out in the early hours of Friday when the air corridors that were operating for the exit of the illegal miners operating in that territory of the Amazon were deactivated, as reported by the FAB on Saturday.
The action was carried out on a clandestine track near the border with Venezuela and ended with two people arrested.
A Brazilian Navy helicopter, equipped with night vision technology, located the runway and set fire to the first aircraft that violated the airspace closure decreed as of last Thursday.
The Government brought forward by a month the definitive closure of the airspace over the Yanomami reserve, which was scheduled for May 6, after a joint decision taken in March by the Ministries of Justice and Defense.
In the last four years, encouraged by policies promoted by the now former president Jair Bolsonaro, illegal mining has expanded notably throughout the Amazon region and has even reached indigenous lands.
In mid-January, the government of now President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva discovered a very serious humanitarian and health situation in the Yanomami land, inhabited by that ethnic group in the north of the country.
According to the authorities, one of the reasons for this crisis was the massive activity of illegal miners, who have contaminated rivers with mercury and devastated part of that territory, inhabited by nearly 30,000 indigenous people.
Lula ordered the immediate withdrawal of these miners, who came to be estimated at around 20,000, and ordered the sending of substantial humanitarian aid to the indigenous people, who in recent years had denounced the situation several times, but without finding an echo in the Government. .
In the first month of the intense operations by the authorities, the Police destroyed 200 camps and confiscated 84 boats and 2 aircraft, in addition to “disabling or seizing” other materials.
According to the Federal Police, forty investigations related to illegal mining were also established, which led to the blocking of 65 million reais (about 5.4 million dollars) from the suspects’ bank accounts. EFE
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