Brazilian bishops issue report on violence against indigenous peoples

August 20, 2026

The Brazilian bishops’ Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI) released a 254-page report on violence committed against indigenous peoples in the South American nation in 2025.

“In 2025, there were increases in the three types of violence systematized in the publication—violence against the person, against property, and by omission of the public authorities—with an increase, among other categories, in conflicts related to territorial rights, murders, suicides, and childhood mortality,” CIMI said in a statement.

“We are at the service of indigenous peoples so that they may continue to exist as a people, to have their own space and territory, to preserve their language, and to maintain their presence within Brazilian culture,” said CIMI’s president, Cardinal Ulrich Steiner, O.F.M., of Manaus.

In the Vatican newspaper’s prominent front-page coverage of the CIMI report, Giovanni Zavatta wrote that “representatives of the Guarani Kaiowá, Terena, Kikininal, Ava Guarani, Mura, Manoki, and Xavante peoples, among others, attended the report’s launch.”

Zavatta commented: “Faces painted with a memory to be preserved; voices asking only to be heard.”

 

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Further information:

• Relatório Violência Contra Povos Indígenas no Brasil – 2025: aumento de conflitos territoriais refletiu cenário de ataques e desidratação dos direitos indígenas (Conselho Indigenista Missionário, 8/13/26)
• Comunità dimenticate (L'Osservatore Romano, 8/19/26)