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A family that left an illegal mining operation in the Yanomami Indigenous Land waits for transportation on the road that connects a clandestine port on the banks of the Uraricoera River, to the village of Reislandia, in the municipality of Alto Alegre.<br />
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President Lula's government organised a major operation to remove such land invaders and since this crackdown on illegal mining in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory began, thousands of miners have begun to flee the territory, where around 30,000 indigenous people live.<br />
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Anyone still willing to pay 15 grams of gold was able to depart the mines by aeroplane to a clandestine landing strip near Boa Vista. But for the vast majority of the mine's labourers, cooks and prostitutes, the only possible escape route was to walk for days in the jungle and navigate small boats along the dangerous waters of the Uraricoera River. These workers, mostly illiterate, are migrants from the poorest regions of Brazil (especially the state of Maranhao) and Venezuela.