Brazilian loggers 'tied eight-year-old Amazonian tribe girl to a tree and burned her alive'

Loggers in Brazil who had illegally entered an Amazon Indian reserve captured an eight-year-old indigenous girl and burned her alive, it was claimed today.

The child, who belonged to the isolated Gwaja-Awa tribe, is believed to have wandered away from her village to play and got lost in the forest.

The group of illegal loggers who were trespassing in the 1000-acre reserve in Maranhao state, northern Brazil, came across the young girl, tied her to a tree and set fire to her, it is claimed.



Horrifying: An eight-year-old girl has reportedly been burned aline in the Amazon rain forest

Luis Carlos Guajajaras, a local Indian leader from another tribe protected by the reserve, told Brazil's Terra website that members of his community had witnessed the horrific murder.



He said the white loggers had been illegally paying Indians from his tribe, the Guajajara, to let them pull down trees using heavy machinery and chains when the lost child appeared.

He said: 'It happened deep in the forest. The loggers were doing business with the Guajajara Indians and found the Gwaja girl. And they burned the child. Just because they wanted to, out of nothing but pure wickedness.

' She was from another tribe, they live deep in the jungle, and have no contact with the outside world. It would have been the first time she had ever seen white men. We heard that they laughed as they burned her to death.'

Today the Indigenous Missionary Council confirmed reports of the murder, which is believed to have happened in October or November.

The group, which is linked to the Catholic Church, claim to be in possession of a video of the child's charred body, filmed by members of the Guajajara tribe.



The council's coordinator Rosa Diniz said the group were only informed of the incident this week by tribal leaders.



She said: 'We are talking about a very large area, where people witnessed the crime and told their elders, who came to us.



'We are seeking more information before we pass the case on to the Federal Police. But according to the evidence we already possess, a child has been burned alive by loggers who were illegally trespassing on an Indian reserve.'



Indian leader Luis Carlos Guajajaras claimed he had informed Brazil's National Indian Foundation of the murder as soon as he had heard about it, but officials failed to investigate.

He said: 'We found out about it when we stopped to help a group of injured Indians. On the way to the first aid point they told us about this girl's death.



'It's very difficult to locate the Gwaja-Awa because they live in the forest, have never been contacted and speak another language. This makes finding out what really happened more difficult.

'Now, after this violence, they must have fled even further into the jungle.'

There are an estimated 15,000 indigenous people living in the Maranhao reserve, made up of various tribes, living in different degrees of isolation.

Brazil's indigenous tribes are under constant threat from loggers, miners and ranchers who pose a risk to Indians' lives and well-being and destroy their natural resources.