Raimundo Silva, 57 years old, aka Umbico, was killed on the morning of April 12th, 2017, while he was returning from a neighboring village to his home in the afro-descendants community “Quilombo do Charco” in São Vicente Férrer, Maranhão.

Raimundo was a community leader at “Quilombo do Charco” and left his house to collect his mother’s pension, and was attacked  on his way back. The police believes it was an execution because he was shot in the back with a shotgun and no valuables were taken, the pension money itself was still in his pocket.

Until 2008 the families in “Quilombo do Charco” would hand half their production to a farmer who claimed to be the owner of the land where their community was. They started suspecting, however, the legality of the claim since their community had been established in the area for more then 90 years. So they decided they would only keep paying if the farmer could produce the property documents proving his claim. That is when the conflicts in the area started, they received threats, there was an arson attack, and community leaders were killed – Flaviano Pinto Neto in 2010 and Raimundo Silva in 2017.