Rio de Janeiro - Five engineers held by hundreds of Brazilian Indians who seized a hydroelectric dam project in a protest have been released, but the facility remained occupied, media reported on Tuesday.
The engineers were freed on Monday, one day after the 300 Indians stormed the under construction Dardanelos dam site in Aripuana, in the central state of Mato Grosso.
Initially, the protesters sequestered 100 workers at the installation, but agreed to swap them for the five engineers who were eventually released after negotiations with indigenous rights agencies and local environmental authorities, the news website G1 reported.
The Indians were demanding $5.6-million in compensation for what they said was damage caused to their nearby reserve by the dam's construction.
"The work site is just 30km from the reserve and is causing a big social and cultural impact in the community, not to speak of environmental damage because the animals we hunt have run away," one indigenous leader, Aldeci Arara, told G1.
The dam is scheduled to begin operations early next year. - Sapa-AFP