Rio de Janeiro (EFE).- At least 258 indigenous people were murdered in Brazil in 2025, a 22.3% increase over 2024. According to a report released on Thursday by a Catholic Church commission, this surge reflects a year of escalating violence against indigenous communities, primarily fueled by ongoing conflicts over land rights.
In 2025, 210 instances of illegal land invasions or resource exploitation were recorded across 151 indigenous reserves. These statistics are detailed in the report «Violence Against Indigenous Peoples in Brazil in 2025,» published by the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI), a pastoral body of the Catholic Church.
The report also documents 169 conflicts over territorial disputes across 143 indigenous areas. The majority of these (66%) occurred in territories that have not yet been properly demarcated by the state and where the reserves are not officially recognized.
This prevalence reflects the bureaucratic delays in regularizing indigenous lands, which allows infrastructure projects and economic exploitation to advance without regard for indigenous presence, CIMI noted.
«In many cases, such as among the Guarani and Kaiowá in Mato Grosso do Sul, or the Pataxó in Bahia, actions taken by indigenous communities to recover parts of their territory, where demarcation has been stalled for years, face violent and disproportionate reactions from landowners who form armed militias to attack indigenous people,» the report states.
