Indian chief killed by gunmen in western Brazil

Gunmen burst into a Guarani Indian camp in Brazil's western Mato Grosso do Sul state and killed the local chief early Friday, the government agency for Indigenous people (FUNAI) said. It said 42 heavily armed, hooded men attacked the Kaiowa Guarani community in the village of Amambai, near the border with Paraguay, and shot the 59-year-old chief, Nisio Gomes. FUNAI said the assailants kidnapped a child and two youths and took away Gomes' body. The agency's regional coordinator Silvio Raymundo da Silva told AFP after touring the site of the raid that one adolescent was injured by rubber bullets. "We found traces of blood," apparently that of Gomes, he added. "They came to kill our chief," said one Indian who witnessed the attack and requested anonymity for security reasons. He added that Gomes' son tried to prevent the killing, but the tribal chief was shot in the head, the chest, the arms and the legs. Most of the community's 60 residents fled the camp to seek refuge in the forest. The incident marked the latest violence linked to land disputes in Brazil, where one percent of the population controls 46 percent of the cultivated land. Guarani have been trying to recover a small portion of their original territories, but face violent resistance from wealthy ranchers and soya and sugar cane plantation owners.