Expansion of Dictatorship-Era Space Base Threatens to Repeat Quilombola Evictions (Portuguese)

The story excerpt and photo captions below were translated from Portuguese. Read the original Portuguese story in full at National Geographic Brasil, or view the story in Portuguese on the Rainforest Journalism Fund website here. Our website is available in English, Spanish, bahasa Indonesia, French, and Portuguese.

Editor's note: This report was produced remotely. The images were taken on visits prior to the pandemic.

Her protest was silence. She remained silent as the aeronautical military emptied her house: first she saw how they took the cat, then the dog, the chickens and finally herself. "She was the last one," recalls Sérvulo Borges, the young recruit who held one of the arms of the lady, who could barely walk, so old she was.

A wooden cane helped with her movements. With each step, the farther she went from her home. The elderly chaplain Ildefonso Graciano Rodrigues held her on the other side, helping her to walk.

After 50 meters the lady stopped, made the two men let go of her arms and turned back to her house, crying. For five minutes, without saying a word, she contemplated the landscape where she was probably born, grew up and wished to die. But which she would never see again.

This report was produced with the support of two grants: Beca GK, in partnership with Hivos/Todos Los Hojos en La Amazonia, and the Pulitzer Center's Rainforest Journalism Fund.