Murders against indigenous people up 21.6% in ten years

The 2021 edition of the Violence Atlas, published today (Aug. 31), shows that the homicide rate against indigenous people grew 21.6 percent in a decade. From 2009 to 2019, 2,074 indigenous people were murdered, as per the publication put together by the Brazilian Public Security Forum in a collaboration with the Institute of Applied Economic Research (Ipea) and the Jones dos Santos Neves Institute.

According to the 2021 Violent Atlas, the homicide rate among the indigenous went up from 15 in every 100 thousand people in 2009 to 18.3 in every 100 thousand in 2019. The homicide rate for Brazil was 27.2 in every 100 thousand people in 2009 and dropped to 21.7 in every 100 thousand in 2019.

The numbers disclosed in the survey stem chiefly from the assessment of statistics from two major databases belonging to the Health Ministry (SIM and Sinan), from a period before the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Atlas also reveals that indigenous homicide rates increased in the last decade, unlike the rate for the country, which reached its peak in 2017, with 31.6 in every 100 thousand, and shrank in the two following years.