Zürcher Nachrichten - In Amazon region hit by double murder, poverty fuels violence

EUR -
AED 4.05586
AFN 78.957999
ALL 100.898311
AMD 432.103575
ANG 1.976787
AOA 1011.467257
ARS 1186.363518
AUD 1.745311
AWG 1.9876
AZN 1.87643
BAM 1.954087
BBD 2.229261
BDT 134.152351
BGN 1.953772
BHD 0.416176
BIF 3231.505662
BMD 1.104222
BND 1.475286
BOB 7.629483
BRL 6.218939
BSD 1.104092
BTN 94.249929
BWP 15.279831
BYN 3.613147
BYR 21642.751059
BZD 2.217774
CAD 1.554408
CDF 3172.42966
CHF 0.948974
CLF 0.027324
CLP 1048.524856
CNY 8.040448
CNH 8.038129
COP 4593.508279
CRC 556.291423
CUC 1.104222
CUP 29.261883
CVE 112.685325
CZK 25.073542
DJF 196.242018
DKK 7.461626
DOP 69.679844
DZD 146.67643
EGP 55.864685
ERN 16.56333
ETB 143.214489
FJD 2.556163
FKP 0.851043
GBP 0.843768
GEL 3.036243
GGP 0.851043
GHS 17.114226
GIP 0.851043
GMD 79.700647
GNF 9552.382551
GTQ 8.501761
GYD 231.665029
HKD 8.588794
HNL 28.265775
HRK 7.532116
HTG 143.529041
HUF 406.090928
IDR 18458.911507
ILS 4.079763
IMP 0.851043
INR 94.359084
IQD 1444.115785
IRR 46487.940849
ISK 146.205374
JEP 0.851043
JMD 172.048419
JOD 0.782868
JPY 161.544354
KES 142.703072
KGS 95.724625
KHR 4416.637221
KMF 499.828456
KPW 993.859466
KRW 1614.714394
KWD 0.340458
KYD 0.918256
KZT 555.254064
LAK 23926.815484
LBP 98898.408728
LKR 325.208576
LRD 220.835956
LSL 20.718348
LTL 3.260481
LVL 0.667933
LYD 5.333615
MAD 10.588417
MDL 19.734571
MGA 5093.722724
MKD 62.808495
MMK 2318.263231
MNT 3857.553481
MOP 8.851802
MRU 43.954051
MUR 50.532927
MVR 17.051344
MWK 1914.764226
MXN 22.015209
MYR 4.917931
MZN 70.547731
NAD 20.718348
NGN 1695.145855
NIO 40.631533
NOK 11.410279
NPR 151.045304
NZD 1.908306
OMR 0.425097
PAB 1.104222
PEN 4.057104
PGK 4.511816
PHP 63.03804
PKR 309.312831
PLN 4.235968
PYG 8802.577006
QAR 4.018956
RON 5.057577
RSD 119.055982
RUB 93.022442
RWF 1568.577853
SAR 4.141096
SBD 9.385397
SCR 15.971898
SDG 662.498791
SEK 10.816804
SGD 1.481886
SHP 0.867745
SLE 25.120995
SLL 23154.984273
SOS 629.958048
SRD 40.437351
STD 22855.165835
SVC 9.662235
SYP 14357.86896
SZL 20.718348
THB 37.663888
TJS 12.043366
TMT 3.862166
TND 3.415945
TOP 2.659637
TRY 41.973454
TTD 7.466717
TWD 36.575064
TZS 2922.401324
UAH 45.631623
UGX 4025.831038
USD 1.104222
UYU 46.647638
UZS 14290.01376
VES 77.083414
VND 28344.064062
VUV 136.448042
WST 3.128076
XAF 666.437941
XAG 0.034564
XAU 0.000355
XCD 2.989452
XDR 0.831364
XOF 666.437941
XPF 119.331742
YER 271.534362
ZAR 20.709672
ZMK 9939.317211
ZMW 30.955568
ZWL 355.559031
  • RBGPF

    -0.2800

    67.72

    -0.41%

  • JRI

    -0.2200

    12.82

    -1.72%

  • BCC

    -7.4400

    94.63

    -7.86%

  • SCS

    -0.7200

    10.74

    -6.7%

  • CMSC

    -0.2400

    22.26

    -1.08%

  • RYCEF

    0.0200

    9.8

    +0.2%

  • NGG

    3.6100

    69.39

    +5.2%

  • GSK

    1.3700

    39.01

    +3.51%

  • BTI

    1.6700

    41.92

    +3.98%

  • RELX

    0.4600

    51.44

    +0.89%

  • RIO

    -1.4700

    58.43

    -2.52%

  • VOD

    0.2500

    9.37

    +2.67%

  • AZN

    1.7000

    73.92

    +2.3%

  • BCE

    0.8400

    22.66

    +3.71%

  • CMSD

    -0.1600

    22.67

    -0.71%

  • BP

    -2.4700

    31.34

    -7.88%

In Amazon region hit by double murder, poverty fuels violence
In Amazon region hit by double murder, poverty fuels violence / Photo: Joao Laet - AFP

In Amazon region hit by double murder, poverty fuels violence

A short walk from the spot where British journalist Dom Phillips and Brazilian Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira set out for their final journey, people sit in the blistering sun breaking rocks into pieces with hammers.

Text size:

It looks like a scene from a movie set in Biblical times, but this is 21st-century Brazil, in the town of Atalaia do Norte -- the jumping-off point for adventurers, missionaries, poachers, smugglers and others drawn to the Javari Valley, a far-flung sprawl of jungle in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.

Phillips, 57, and Pereira, 41, were boating back to Atalaia after a research trip to the region when they were murdered on June 5. Indigenous leaders say the crime was payback by illegal fishermen for Pereira's fight against poaching on native lands.

The murky case has cast an international spotlight on the Javari Valley, home to an Indigenous reservation bigger than Austria that has the largest concentration of uncontacted tribes on Earth.

The region has been hit by a surge of illegal fishing, logging, mining and drug trafficking -- crimes that security experts say are being fueled by poverty.

In Atalaia, the county seat, Carmen Magalhaes da Roxa explains why she is sitting on a block of wood in the dirt, smashing up stones with a hammer to sell for construction projects at four reais (less than $1) a bucket.

"There's no other work here. If I don't break these rocks, I won't have money to buy gas, pay the electricity bill, buy my medication," says Roxa, 54, pounding away in a floral print dress and flip-flops with half a dozen other "quebra-pedras," or rock-breakers.

"We suffer here -- a lot. I smash my fingers, I get hit by flying shards. But what can you do?" asks the grandmother of three, turning up her bruised hands in a shrug.

- Lack of options -

Seventy-five percent of the population lives in poverty in Atalaia do Norte, a colorful but run-down river town of 20,000 people near the spot where Brazil meets Peru and Colombia.

Nearly everything in town is produced locally, or brought in by boat from Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state -- an eight-day trip.

There are few ways to escape poverty.

Locals often say they have three job options: farming, fishing or city hall, the biggest employer in the county.

Analysts say growing lawlessness has created a fourth: environmental crime, backed by money from drug gangs that thrive on the anarchy of a triple border deep in the jungle.

"Drug traffickers insert impoverished local populations into their networks, presenting it as an opportunity," security specialist Aiala Colares of Para State University wrote in a recent paper, adding that cartels operating in the Amazon feed off "abandonment by the state."

"We can't address the issue of environmental crimes without addressing poverty," Brazilian journalist Yan Boechat said on Twitter.

"Economic development in the Amazon region is a failure. What happened to Bruno and Dom is related to that," he wrote, alongside a video of the Atalaia rock-breakers.

- Violent mix -

Poverty and lawlessness have proved to be a violent mix.

Critics say the weak presence of the state -- a longtime problem across the Amazon -- has only become more acute since 2019 under President Jair Bolsonaro, whose administration has shrunk environmental enforcement and the Indigenous affairs agency, FUNAI.

In the Javari Valley, a surge in violence followed.

The FUNAI base at the edge of the Indigenous reservation was the target of multiple gun attacks in 2019.

The same year, FUNAI's anti-poaching chief in the region was murdered in the nearby city of Tabatinga. The crime remains unsolved.

Just across the border, gunmen in speedboats attacked a Peruvian police station in January, wounding four officers and brazenly stealing a weapons cache. The post has yet to reopen.

Marivonea Moreira de Mello, a 45-year-old mother of four who works at city hall in Atalaia, recalls that a decade ago, she used to sleep with her front door open. Now she wouldn't dare, she says.

"Our young people are getting addicted to drugs. My own son is one of them. He's 20," she says.

She was happy when the army, navy, federal police and world media descended on Atalaia after Phillips and Pereira went missing.

Now that they have mostly left, she worries what will happen. The local police force has just two officers.

"Atalaia do Norte is in a very dangerous situation," she says.

"There's a lack of police, lack of security, lack of everything."

W.Odermatt--NZN