Illegal gold miners blamed for causing a humanitarian crisis on Brazil's largest indigenous reservation are asking authorities to help them leave, one of their leaders and a Brazilian senator said on Monday.
Aware of an imminent military enforcement operation to evict them, Jailson Mesquita, head of the Garimpo e Legal movement (Wildcat Mining Is Legal) called on the government to airlift miners from Yanomami territory or lift a no-fly zone to allow them to fly out on small planes from clandestine airstrips inside the reservation where mining is banned under Brazil's Constitution.
