An indigenous leader has been killed in Venezuela, who condemned illegal mining and the presence of irregular armed groups, human rights activists reported on Friday (1st).
According to these reports, Virgilio Trujillo Arana, 38, a member of the Uwottuja indigenous people, died on Thursday of a gunshot wound in Puerto Ayacucho, the capital of the Amazonas state, on the border of Brazil and Colombia.
The Observatory for the Defense of Life (ODEVID), made up of human rights organizations from Venezuela, Colombia and Peru, expressed “great concern” over the crime in a statement, emphasizing that Trujillo Arana was “fighting to keep his land free”. mining and the presence of irregular Colombian guerrilla forces operating in the region”.
Between 2013 and 2021, ODEVIDA documented the deaths of 32 indigenous leaders and environmental activists in Venezuela, 21 victims of the “garimpeiro gunman” and 11 by military “effective” hands.
Kape Kape, an NGO advocating for indigenous rights, tweeted: “Authorities have already launched an investigation and so far has not reported why”.
According to this organization, Trujillo Arana fired two shots in a neighborhood of Puerto Ayacucho, while other versions circulating in the press state that these would be three shots, “all to the head.”
Authorities did not provide information about the incident.
ODEVIDA demanded “quick and effective investigations and guarantees of reparation, with penalties, for those responsible for this murder, which shocked the family of the victim and the indigenous communities affected by the violence of non-state actors in their ancestral lands.”
In addition, it demanded compliance with a decree “banning all mining activities in the state of Amazonas,” in effect since 1989.
In recent years, the neighboring state of Bolivar has seen violence linked to the illegal mining mafia in the Arco Minero del Orinoco, a large region of southern Venezuela rich in gold and other minerals such as iron and coltan.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has warned of the situation in the region that has left more than 150 dead since 2016.
In addition, some organizations denounced the operations in border areas of armed criminal groups, as well as dissidents from former FARC (Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces) and ELN (National Liberation Army) fighters.
source: Noticias
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