Geraldo de Campos Bandeira, a peasant member of the League of Poor Peasants (Liga dos Camponeses Pobres – LCP) was shot dead on May 09, 2016.

LCP is a social movement that organizes landless rural workers in the struggle for agrarian reform and for the social justice in the rural areas

Geraldo was a resident of Monte Verde settlement, targeted on the land disputes by the Fazenda Padre Cícero, in the municipality of Monte Negro, region of Vale do Jamari, in the state of Rondônia

The murder of Geraldo is not an isolated incident. Unfortunately, this murder fits a pattern of violence against land rights defenders that we see across Brazil. According to the Pastoral Land Commission (Comissão Pastoral da Terra – CPT), in the state of Rondônia 21 people were murdered due to agrarian conflicts in the year of 2016. In the total 61 defenders were killed in Brazil in 2016 for crimes related to land issues.