Brazil: Police Evicts Guarani-Kaiowá Peasants After Facing Paramilitary Attack

Featured image: Police arrive to Kaa’Jari. Source: A Nova Democracia

Armed paramilitary groups linked to big landlords attacked the Kaa’Jari peasant land seizure in the Iguatemipeguá II Indigenous Territory (TI) in the early hours of the morning. Hours later, police forces – including the Department of Border Operations (DOF) and the Military Police (PM) – intervened to expel the peasants who had reclaimed the area, in clear complicity with the big landlords.

Although the paramilitaries were the attackers, the peasants were the police’s target: six indigenous peasants were detained, including a 14-year-old. The area remains under siege, with indigenous peasants surrounded by paramilitaries and roads controlled by DOF agents.

A peasant from the Limão Verde Reserve denounced: “The police beat, torture, and detain us, but the retaking of land is legitimate. We do not occupy what does not traditionally belong to the people. The area is under review with a judicial agreement for its demarcation. Why hasn’t it been done yet? We have no alternative.”

The retaking of Kaa’Jari took place near the lands of the Limoeiro Estate, which overlap with the Tapykora Korá tekoha. This action is linked to events from last year, when families occupied the claimed land within the Indigenous Territory. The police intervention, directed against the peasants who had been attacked by paramilitary groups, ended up displacing some of them back to the village of Limão Verde, which was targeted by gunfire and bombs. According to the peasants, another part of the group remains on the estate.

Guaraní-Kaiowá leaders participated in April in the 2026 Free Land Camp in Brasília, denouncing the stalling of demarcation processes and rejecting the purchase of land as an alternative to constitutional demarcation. With more than 80 pending areas and land recoveries, the peasants denounce the 20 years of waiting for the land.