Tribe near Brazil's biggest city fights to hold on

Located next to Sao Paulo, one of the world's biggest cities, the Guarani-Mbya tribe's reservation here was always easy to miss. Under a new law, it risks disappearing almost altogether.
"People think there aren't any Indians in Sao Paulo," says Antonio Awa, a tribal leader from the related Tupi- Guarani, with a smile.
The Jaragua reservation, just 12 miles (20 km) from the Brazilian mega city, easily passes under the radar. The territory of 1,312 acres (532 hectares), which was agreed to in 2015, doesn't amount to much in this vast country.
Last month, however, President Michel Temer tore up the agreement, meaning that the 720 tribespeople will be left with one little corner that had been set aside in 1987 -- just 4.2 acres (1.7 hectares). Only one village of the current five would remain.

"The whites don't understand our connection to the land because they don't live in the forest," said Tupa Mirim, one of Jaragua's embattled inhabitants.
The village due to remain, Ytu, is in relatively good shape. In other villages, the native people live in basic conditions, the children barefoot, the houses rudimentary and toilets shared.

In Ytu, there's running water in houses built by the state in the 1990s. There's also the one health center and school for the tribe, where children learn their maternal Guarani until eight and then Portuguese.
But even here, there is a feeling that life is being squeezed out of the community.

Jurandir Karai Jekupe, 41, lost his infant daughter in June, when she was less than one. "The death certificate said it was because of a bacteria but no one explained to me what happened," he says, noting that infant mortality is a constant worry on the reservation.
At the health center, which is open eight hours a day, respiratory infections are a common complaint, a nurse, who asked not to be identified, said.