Quito - Some 1,000 police officers evicted 200 indigenous people from a 70-hectare lot they had illegally occupied for more than a year, Ecuadorian media reported Thursday.
The members of the Kichwa, Shuar and Hoaorani communities had lived on the land in the Amazonian town of Puyo, some 222 kilometres from Quito, since April 14, 2007.
Force was used to remove them after an initial verbal request that the indigenous people leave the site failed to achieve the intended results. Officers brought down the walls of precarious houses and pulled people out of their homes.
According to media reports, one civilian was wounded by a gunshot during the operation.