The garimpeiros had bragged that they’d come across members of a reclusive, uncontacted Amazonian tribe near Brazil’s border with Peru and Colombia, authorities say. The miners cut the tribe members’ bodies so that they wouldn’t float, Lorenzi said, then dropped them into the Jandiatuba River. Three of the closed bases were in the Javari Valley, home to more uncontacted tribes than anywhere else on Earth. But the tribe members are not the only people in that part of the Amazon, Lorenzi said. “It’s the uncontacted versus illegal miners who think they can get away with anything.

Source: Washington Post September 11, 2017 17:47 UTC