When the Indigenous leader Teodoro Alves was a young child in his community of Ocoy-Jacutinga, on the border between Paraguay and Brazil, a river ran through it. The Paraná River, which rises in Brazil and flows south through Paraguay to the Río de la Plata between Argentina and Uruguay, once structured the lives of Avá-Guarani people along its banks.
That continuity, Alves says, was broken in the 1970s with the construction of the Itaipu hydroelectric dam, which submerged their lands and displaced hundreds of families. “I saw the Paraná River before the Itaipu dam was closed. Now I see an immense lake. The river died completely. It died with the Avá-Guarani people,” Alves says.
Seen from above, the concrete wall, 196 metres high and almost 8km (5 miles) long, dominates the landscape, lying across the border between Brazil and Paraguay. One of the largest hydroelectric plants in the world, Itaipu supplies electricity to both countries, which describe it as a model clean-energy project.
Itaipu hydroelectric dam, on the Paraná River, was built in the 1970s, submerging land and displacing hundreds of people. Photograph: Kiko Sierich/The Guardian
For Indigenous communities, the dam’s construction under the two countries’ military governments marked the start of a deep rupture with their territory. At the time, about 380 Avá-Guarani families lived in the Ocoy-Jacutinga community, along the Paraná.
Fifty years on, the Avá-Guarani, part of the Guarani people living in regions of Paraguay, Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina, are still fighting for justice. In 2025, a Brazilian court agreement secured partial reparations – including 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of land and a public apology – but Indigenous leaders say the measures fall short of true territorial recognition.
double quotation markThis is not just about historical land dispossession. The Guarani were deprived of territory, culture and their identityEliana Torelly, Brazilian prosecutor
In Paraguay, affected communities have received little or no reparations, as authorities deny their ancestral claims. In the 1980s, some compensation was awarded based on the value of crops and houses on record. But according to Amnesty International, many people say they have received no compensation or that the amount received is insufficient to buy new land.
The Avá-Guarani lived in tekoha – which, in Guarani, means territories of life, such as housing, farming, spirituality and collective practices. That harmony, they say, was abruptly interrupted by forced displacement.
Teodoro Alves (second right) and his family in front of their home in Ocoy. Photograph: Kiko Sierich/The Guardian
“When the land measurements began, and the project moved forward, many families had to leave,” says Pedro Alves, Teodoro’s older brother, now 66. “Most fled. Only four or five stayed. That’s why Itaipu says it found few families there.”
As construction advanced, part of the river’s original course was dried out, and the Sete Quedas waterfalls, also known as Guaíra Falls – sacred to the Guarani – disappeared underwater as vast areas were flooded.
A map of the Paraná River and surrounding territory
These losses were documented over decades by researchers and Indigenous leaders and published in a book, Imagem e Memória dos Avá-Guarani Paranaenses, in 2020. It says the territory was continuously occupied for more than 2,000 years, fragmented by state borders created across the Paraná, Iguaçu, and Paranapanema river basins.
“For us, Guarani, there is no Brazilian, Paraguayan or Argentine Guarani. We are one people,” says Teodoro Alves.
More than 30 Avá-Guarani communities now live in precarious encampments, without official rights to the land or adequate living conditions. Photograph: Kiko Sierich/The Guardian
According to Clóvis Brighenti, a historian at the Federal University for Latin American Integration (Unila) and one of the book’s editors, the Guarani today number about 280,000 people, mainly living in Brazil and Paraguay.
The struggle for territorial recognition and for reparations began in the communities. “If we don’t tell what happened, it’s as if it never existed,” says Pedro Alves. Since the 1980s, they have gathered accounts of expulsions and the official denial of their identity, with support from researchers.
According to the geographer Osmarina de Oliveira, Brazilian state agencies sent an official to determine who was Indigenous in areas affected by the dam, applying criteria that excluded many Avá-Guarani from recognition.
“This was used to deny rights and responsibilities of both the state and Itaipu,” she says. The approach was later challenged, with support from the Brazilian Anthropological Association, which produced independent reports recognising those families as Guarani.
A Pataxó Indigenous man holds up a poster that reads in Portuguese ‘We are all Guarani’ during a protest in 2015. Photograph: Eraldo Peres/AP
The quest for justice gained new momentum in 2015 with the creation of a Guarani Truth Commission, led by the Guarani people. “We worked together with researchers to document violations of Avá-Guarani rights. This work continues,” says Teodoro Alves.
Indigenous agencies took the Brazilian state and the dam’s operator, Itaipu Binacional, to court, seeking reparations for the affected communities. “This is not just about historical land dispossession. The Guarani were deprived of territory, culture and their identity,” says deputy prosecutor-general Eliana Torelly.
In March 2025, Brazil’s supreme court ordered the operator to buy 3,000 hectares of land for Guarani communities and make a formal public apology. Itaipu acknowledged the displacement of Avá-Guarani communities, the loss of traditional lands and sacred sites – including the Sete Quedas – and admitted that decisions were based on the mistaken assumption that the region was uninhabited. It says 447 hectares have been acquired so far, with an investment of 240m reals (£34m).
Yet for many, this is not nearly enough. “The agreement approved by the court is only partial; the merits of the case have not yet been fully resolved,” Torelly says.
Avá-Guarani Indigenous people stage a protest in Asunción, Paraguay, in 2024. Photograph: Jorge Sáenz/AP
Communities echo this view. “The 3,000 hectares amount to an emergency land purchase. That is not enough to recognise the flooded territory,” says Teodoro Alves. “Recognition has to become real living conditions.”
Despite the developments in Brazil, Avá-Guarani communities in Paraguay still lack reparations. But Teodoro Alves says rights violations affected communities on both sides of the river. “For us, the border does not exist.”
María Delia Martínez, a leader of the Ara Pyahu Indigenous community, about 200km from Itaipu, says: “I ask, on behalf of all Avá-Guarani affected by Itaipu, that our villages be restored. Everything was taken from us, and we suffered deeply.”
Martínez is the daughter of Julio Martínez, one of the leaders who denounced land seizures during the dam’s construction. “My father always remembered how we went hungry and cold when we left our territory because of Itaipu. He fought hard to recover the land they took from us,” she says.
Teodoro Alves, left, with his mother and his brother, Pedro, who says: ‘If we don’t tell what happened, it’s as if it never existed.’ Photograph: Kiko Sierich/The Guardian
After the forced displacement, communities were confined to four settlements far from the river, totalling just over 5,000 hectares, outside their traditional habitat and without prior consultation.
“We have records showing that 1,565 people have been affected on the Paraguayan side since Itaipu was built, most of them descendants already born in the diaspora,” says Hugo Valiente of Amnesty International Paraguay.
He says “forced displacement carried out under a military regime and in the context of crimes against humanity is a continuing violation, which persists until territorial restitution or an equivalent alternative is provided”.
The Paraguayan management of Itaipu Binacional and Indi, the national Indigenous agency, are yet to comment.
Amnesty says Paraguayan authorities and Itaipu Binacional’s Paraguayan office do not formally recognise the affected Indigenous peoples or their right to ancestral territory, and any compensation given in the 1980s lasted only a few weeks.
“Itaipu Binacional’s Paraguayan administration maintains it has already compensated people,” Valiente says. He says complaints were filed with state agencies. “There have been formal requests and no response. We are very far from any restitution. The territory is still waiting.”
This waiting has a name in Guarani: sarambi, the forced dispersal caused by the damming of the Paraná River for the construction of Itaipu.
Pedro and Teodoro Alves experienced sarambi as children. “There were me, Pedro, Joãozinho, Venâncio, and two sisters, Santa and Maria,” Teodoro recalls. Together the siblings crossed the river into Paraguay. “The crossing was by canoe. The river is strong and dangerous. We took only clothes, a blanket and a dog. Everything else was left behind,” he says.
Ocoy village. The displacement from traditional lands has fragmented the community. Photograph: Kiko Sierich/The Guardian
As with many Avá-Guarani families, the displacement scattered relatives across Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina, fragmenting a community once held together by the river, language and ritual life.
Decades after the dam, sarambi remains a daily reality. More than 30 Avá-Guarani communities now live in precarious encampments, without regularised land or adequate living conditions. Dispersal is no longer just a memory.
“We ask for funding for the communities themselves to build houses, plant crops, buy machinery or support handicrafts,” Teodoro says. “So that we can decide for ourselves what we need to live.”
