Prospectors attacked by Amazon Indians

Thursday, April 15, 2004

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil -- An Amazon Indian attack on prospectors who were illegally digging for diamonds on a reservation in northern Brazil may have killed as many as 35 people, officials said Wednesday. Police are in contact with other heavily armed prospectors who entered the Roosevelt Indian reservation in Rondonia state, some 2,100 miles northwest of Rio de Janeiro. The prospectors hoped to recover the bodies of colleagues apparently killed in the clash with Cinta Larga Indians on April 7. "They've told us by satellite phone they've recovered 19 bodies and they believe 35 were killed," Rondonia state policeman Anderson Souza Silva said Wednesday by telephone from Espiagao d'Oeste, the town nearest the reservation.

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