Sad news on the passing away of Zéphyrin Kalimba

Written on 06 January 2022.

It is with deep sadness that IWGIA received the news that Mr. Zéphyrin Kalimba passed away on the 2^nd of January in a hospital in Kigali, Rwanda at the age of 62.

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Condemnation of State Sponsored Violence on Unarmed Civilians in Nagaland, India

Written on 13 December 2021.

Asia Indigenous Peoples Pact (AIPP) and The International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs (IWGIA), unequivocally condemn the blatant disregard for the human rights of Indigenous Peoples in Nagaland in the recent extrajudicial killings of fourteen civilians by Indian security forces during an ‘operation’ in Oting under Tizit sub-division of Mon district in the North-Eastern state of Nagaland, India, and in clashes following the first encounter.

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What is happening to the land of the Mro people?

Written on 15 December 2021.

The hills around Chimbuk are steep. They are part of the ancestral lands that stretch across the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) in Bangladesh, which are, and have been, home to the Indigenous Mro community for centuries. But a large area of that land on that hilltop they cannot get to; not because it’s too steep to climb, the Mro are used to climbing hills – this is their ancestral land, and they have lived off it for generations. The reason they cannot get to the area is because it is fenced off – and not by the Mro. 

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Colombia–Venezuela: the Wayúu face poverty and violence

Written on 10 December 2021.

BY CARLOS SALAMANCA VILLAMIZAR FOR DEBATES INDÍGENAS.

Marked by trade since colonial times, the Indigenous people of La Guajira live along the Colombia–Venezuela border. Between a lack of drinking water, the extractive industry, wind farms and the humanitarian crisis, the Wayúu survive despite dispossession and food insecurity. In recent times, violence caused by the militarisation of the region and the territorial disputes between paramilitary groups, smugglers, drug traffickers and the illegal trade in fuel has only added to the problem. The closure of borders is leaving family and community dynamics at crisis point.

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