'They're killing us': world's most endangered tribe cries for help | World news | The Observer

23.4.12

'They're killing us': world's most endangered tribe cries for help | World news | The Observer: It is a scene played out throughout the Amazon as the authorities struggle to tackle the powerful illegal logging industry. But it is not just the loss of the trees that has created a situation so serious that it led a Brazilian judge, Jos�Carlos do Vale Madeira, to describe it as "a real genocide". People are pouring on to the Aw�s land, building illegal settlements, running cattle ranches. Hired gunmen – known as pistoleros – are reported to be hunting Aw�who have stood in the way of land-grabbers. Members of the tribe describe seeing their families wiped out. Human rights campaigners say the tribe has reached a tipping point and only immediate action by the Brazilian government to prevent logging can save the tribe.