"Indigenous leader who opposed illegal mining killed in Venezuela", 01 July 2022

...A Venezuelan indigenous leader who was an opponent of armed groups and illegal mining was shot dead on Thursday in the Amazonas state capital, a non-governmental organization and three people with knowledge of the case said.

Virgilio Trujillo Arana, a 38-year-old indigenous Uwottuja man, was a defender of the Venezuelan Amazon...

"In life, Trujillo Arana strongly opposed the presence of foreign groups and illegal mining exploitation in the indigenous territories of the Uwottuja people, in the Alto Guayapo area," indigenous rights NGO A.C Kape Kape wrote Friday on Twitter.

The Uwottuja community is made up of about 15,000 people.

Kape Kape's director general Armando Obdola told Reuters that Trujillo had received threats for his activism...

Communities from the town of Uwottuja announced last February their decision to defend their territory against a "silent invasion" by criminal groups, rejecting illegal mining exploitation as well as the use of their land for illicit activities...

Non-governmental organizations and a United Nations report have denounced the presence of violent criminal groups that control gold mines in the jungle.

Mining has been prohibited since 1989 in Venezuela's southern Amazonas state...