A devastating new report from Brazil’s Pastoral Land Commission (CPT) reveals that assassinations linked to rural land conflicts doubled in 2025, jumping from 13 to 26 deaths in a single year.
The data, released Monday in Brasília as part of the annual Conflitos no Campo Brasil report, paints a grim picture. The North Region accounted for more than half of all violent deaths, with seven killings recorded in Pará and seven in Rondônia. Additional deaths occurred in Bahia (4), Amazonas (2), Paraná (2), São Paulo (2), Minas Gerais (1), and Mato Grosso do Sul (1).
The victims tell a story of Brazil’s most vulnerable communities: landless farmers were the hardest hit, with 10 killed, followed by seven indigenous people and four squatters. The doubling of the death toll underscores the intensifying pressure on land rights in a country where agribusiness expansion continues to collide with the claims of smallholders and indigenous communities.
