Operation by Ibama and PRF was launched in the first half of February| Photo: Ibama/Disclosure

The Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama), together with the Federal Highway Police (PRF), dismantled more than 190 camps set up by prospectors illegally working inside the Yanomami Indigenous Land. The assessment is part of Operation Omawe, launched in the first half of February. The information was released by Brazil Agency.

In addition to dismantling the camps, environmental inspectors and federal road police destroyed more than 100 pieces of equipment such as rafts, electric power generators, engines and boats. They also seized around 19,000 kilos of cassinterite illegally extracted from inside the indigenous land.

According to Ibama and the PRF, the destruction of heavy machinery and other instruments and chemical products aims to discourage garimpeiros, already identified, from returning to the camps and recovering the seized items that the operation is unable to remove from the site, given the difficulties access to the area.

Operation Omawe, whose name is a reference to an ancestral Yanomami hero, is part of the federal government’s actions to contain the humanitarian crisis in the Yanomami villages.