Violence has escalated in the small Brazilian town of Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade as illegal gold mining on the nearby Sararé Indigenous Territory has exploded over the last two years, according to the 2025 Amazon Violence Atlas.
Located in Mato Grosso state near the Bolivian border, Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade recorded the highest rate of intentional violent deaths in the entire Brazilian Amazon from 2022 to 2024: 136 deaths per 100,000 residents. That is the highest rate in the 772 municipalities of the Brazilian Amazon and more than six times Brazil’s average of 20.8.
“The worsening violence in the region appears to be strongly linked to the intensification of illegal mining in the Sararé Indigenous Territory,” authors of the report wrote. “It is notable that Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade was not among the top 50 most violent cities in our last edition.”
Home to the Nambikwara people, the Sararé Indigenous Territory has suffered more than 70% of all deforestation on Indigenous land due to illegal gold mining in the Brazilian Amazon. Roughly 2,000 illegal gold miners have invaded a territory home to roughly 200 Indigenous people.
In Vila Bela da Santíssima Trindade, there were 12 recorded intentional violent deaths in 2022 and 17 in 2023. By 2024 the number jumped to 42, an increase of 250% over three years.
Several reported deaths came from territory disputes within the illegal mining sites and armed confrontation between miners and environmental police forces.
In 2024, four people, including a 20-year-old woman, were allegedly killed following disputes over illegal gold mining areas.
In May 2024, five people associated with illegal mining were shot and killed during a police operation. Police seized a rifle, a submachine gun, a shotgun, two pistols and a revolver with the miners. In August and September 2025, another six people were shot and killed in two separate operations; police reported that the miners opened fire on their teams.
In 2023, a Pulitzer Center investigation followed the disappearance of a 12-year-old Indigenous girl, who was allegedly kidnapped from her family home and taken to a mining site in August 2023.
Mongabay confirmed with FUNAI, the federal agency that protects Indigenous people in Brazil, that the girl returned home between December 2023 and January 2024.
Banner image: Devastation left behind by illegal gold mining within the borders of the Sararé Indigenous territory in Mato Grosso, Brazil. Image courtesy of IBAMA.
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