Brazilian Indians locked in a land dispute in the Amazon met Pope Benedict at the Vatican on Wednesday to enlist Church support in their efforts to defend their three-year-old reservation.
Brazil created the Raposa Serra do Sol reservation in the northern state of Roraima in 2005, but plans to remove the non-Indian farmers living inside sparked a legal battle and fuelled renewed violence.
Masked gunmen shot and wounded 10 Indians on May 5, including a 12-year-old boy, the Indians said.
"I told (the pope) that we're here asking for support for our land in Brazil, that we need his support," Jacir Jose de Souza from the Makuxi tribe told Reuters.
Souza said the pontiff told him he would "do whatever possible to help", but the Vatican did not comment on their brief exchange after the pope's weekly general audience.
Pierlangela Nascimento da Cunha of the Wapixana tribe, the other Indian who met the pope, said the high-profile encounter would reassure her community that the world was watching.
"The fact that we're here today will mean that other people will know about our situation. This brings us comfort, that we're not alone," she said.
Cunha said 21 Indians in the region have been killed in long-running violence over land disputes since the 1970s.
