An entire Brazilian tribe reportedly threatened to commit mass suicide earlier this week over a land issue, but the Brazilian government and the Catholic Church denied those claims.
The National Indian Foundation, known as Funai, and the Catholic Church’s Indigenous Missionary Council told the EFE news agency that the tribe of 170 Guarani Indians in the southwestern state of Mato Grosso do Sul would not kill themselves.
It was reported earlier by the Daily Mail that they would carry out the act because a court ruled they must leave their sacred burial land. The Guarani Indians claim their ancestors have lived on the land for centuries.
“We ask, one time for all, for the government to decree our extinction as a tribe, and to send tractors to dig a big hole and there to throw our dead bodies,” the tribe wrote in a letter, according to the Daily Mail. “We have all decided that we will not leave this place, neither alive nor dead.”
Brazilian Federal Deputy Sarney Filho described the situation as “extremely worrying” in a letter to the Justice Ministry, adding: “This tribe has had its culture and lands attacked for centuries. They could now go down in history as being the tribe which wiped themselves out by committing collective suicide.”
But sources with the Funai organization told EFE that the indigenous leaders would not commit suicide but would remain on the land no matter the cost.
The land is located on the Cambara ranch near the Pyelito Kue indigenous reserve.
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