Sharjah24 - Reuters: Brazil is preparing a task force of armed forces, police and government agencies to expel illegal gold miners who invaded the Yanomami indigenous reservation, officials said on Tuesday.
More than 20,000 wildcat miners are blamed for bringing disease, violence and hunger that have caused a humanitarian crisis for isolated Yanomami villages on Brazil's largest indigenous reservation, on the border with Venezuela.
Defense Minister Jose Mucio said the military is needed to drive out the miners, who are well armed and have helicopters.
"We will soon confront them. We need to root out this evil," Mucio said in an interview with Band TV.
With army troops on the ground, the navy will patrol rivers and confiscate miners' boats and dredges while the air force will control the airspace and force suspicious planes to land, he said.
Joenia Wapichana, who in a few days will become the first indigenous person to head the government's indigenous affairs agency, Funai, said President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has pledged to end illegal mining on protected reservation lands.
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