Illegal gold miners fire on civillians

BRASILIA: Illegal gold miners inside the Yanomami reservation in northern Brazil on Monday opened fire with automatic weapons on an indigenous community that has opposed their entry by river, a Yanomami leader said.

The Yanomami responded with bows and arrows and shotguns wounding four of the attackers during the 30-minute clash on Monday morning, Dario Kopenawa, head of the Yanomami’s Hutukara Association said yesterday.

One indigenous person was grazed in the skirmish, he said in a report to the government’s indigenous affairs agency Funai|