Last Living Man of Juma Tribe in Brazil Dies From COVID-19
Members of the Munduruku indigenous tribe gather along the Tapajos River during a "Caravan of Resistance'" protest by indigenous groups and supporters who oppose plans to construct a hydroelectric dam on the Tapajos River in the Amazon rainforest on November 27, 2014 in Sao Luiz do Tapajos, Para State, Brazil. Indigenous groups and activists travelled by boat from communities along the river to express resistance to the proposed 8.040- MW Sao Luiz do Tapajos mega-dam, which is one of a series of five dams planned in the region that will flood indigenous lands and national parks. Mario Tama/Getty Images

Aruká Juma, the last surviving man of Amazon's Juma tribe, has died from COVID-19, which was brought by invading loggers.

Juma, aged between 86 and 90, was the last fluent speaker of the tribe's language, making his death eradicate the Juma tribe's many traditions and rituals that have been practiced for years.

Juma tribe was once numbered 15,000, but the number dwindled because of recurring massacres and the Amazon variant of coronavirus.

"We were many before the rubber tappers and the prospectors came to kill all the Juma people. Back then, the Juma were happy. Now there is only me," Juma told photographer Gabriel Uchida in 2016, as reported by The Sun.

Juma said he had witnessed the killings as outsiders invaded their land in the 1960s. More than 60 people in Juma tribe were known to have been killed, with only seven remaining alive.

The Juma tribe then decided to move in with the Uru-eu-wau-wau group, and his daughters got married in this group.

According to an NBC News report, experts and advocates for remote indigenous communities worldwide said they fear that the geographic remoteness and inaccessibility to health care might mean that the pandemic could endanger the existence of groups that survived previous outbreaks.

Indigenous People in Brazil and the Pandemic

The pandemic has posed a new threat to the health and survival of indigenous peoples. Many factors contribute to the high mortality rates caused by COVID-19 in the group, including malnutrition and undernutrition, poor access to sanitation, lack of clean water, and medical services, according to a United Nations News brief.

"The threat of COVID-19 in the Amazon to indigenous peoples and the peoples in isolation is a very real threat of possible ethnocide," Leila Salazar-López, the executive director of the advocacy group Amazon Watch, said in the NBC News report.

Salazar-López noted that there are not enough hospitals, emergency canoes or helicopters, and resources available to treat people.

She also cited the reported infection numbers in Brazil's Amazonian states that have grown significantly in the past few weeks, with some deaths recorded inside indigenous settlements.

Activists also said that invading loggers, miners, and land grabbers spread the COVID-19 to the rainforests, affecting indigenous groups with little immunity to the deadly disease.

Saran Shenker, a member of the tribe conservation charity Survival International, told The Sun that invaders' existence in one place could "wipe out" people because of the COVID-19.

The Coordinating Body for Indigenous Organizations in the Brazilian Amazon reported a death rate of 58 percent among the tribes, which is higher than the general population. On the other hand, the infection rate is 68 percent higher.

Communities have been pushed to barricade the entranceways to their lands, trying to shun the spread of the disease. However, Salazar-López said that some are trying to take advantage of the situation by continuing activities that the Brazilian government has done little to prevent.

Dr. Douglas Rodrigues, who heads the Xingu Project at the Federal University of São Paulo's Department of Preventive Medicine, said the number of invaders breaching indigenous territory in Brazil has increased in recent years.

Rodrigues agreed that the illegal invaders "are vectors for the introduction of COVID-19" in the communities.

WATCH: UN: COVID-19 'Grave Threat' to the World's Indigenous People -From Al Jazeera English