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Mennonites said to deforest ancestral Indigenous land in Colombia
Environmental authorities and Indigenous groups accuse a Mennonite community, members of an Anabaptist Protestant sect, of destroying forests and polluting water sources in the Altillanura high plains of eastern Colombia.
Authorities say the Mennonites have burned 135 hectares (333 acres) of riverbank forest since arriving in the region in 2016.
Indigenous Sikuani communities say the Mennonites have taken over their ancestral lands and driven away the native wildlife and fish with their farming activities and intensive use of agrochemicals.
The Mennonite colony is one of many that left Mexico in recent years and settled in other Latin American countries, including Peru and Bolivia, where they have also been accused of environmental violations.