After 55 days of peaceful protest, indigenous people were violently evicted from the ‘Devil’s bend’, a part of the Fernando Belaunde highway in Northern Peru. The Awajun and Wampis were (and still are) protesting ten legislative decrees, facilitating entrance of foreign companies willing to extract natural resources in the Peruvian rainforest.

Although the indigenous communities have been fighting exploitation of the rainforest for various years now, the petrol and mining concessions in their territory have only increased. The last numbers show that a whopping 70% of the Peruvian Amazon is in concession of oil companies. The first 45 days they prevented crude oil going out of the rainforest by peacefully blocking a pipeline. Because of a lack of press coverage and political interest, they left their territory to block the road. After 10 days they were violently removed, leaving 34 people dead and almost 200 wounded.

Afterwards the government blamed the indigenous communities: calling them savages and lower-class people. International pressure forced them to change their story, but today almost a 100 indigenous leaders remain prosecuted.