Land rights activist shot dead in Brazilian Amazon hospital

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Five armed men have burst into a small-town hospital in the Brazilian Amazon, surrounded security guards and shot dead a prominent land rights activist, in the latest deadly attack on land campaigners.

Waldomiro Costa Pereira, an activist with the Landless Workers Movement (MST) was killed on Monday when gunmen stormed the hospital in Parauapebas in north-eastern Brazil’s Pará state, campaigners said in a statement.

Brazil has become one of the world’s most dangerous countries for land rights activists, with 61 killings last year, the highest level since 2003, according to the Pastoral Land Commission (CPT), a Brazilian advocacy group.
Conflicts over territory are common in Brazil where 1% of the population owns nearly half of the nation’s land, according to a 2016 study from the University of Windsor in Canada.

-The Guardian. 21.03.2017