Dorothy Stang was 73 years old when she was murdered in the Brazilian Amazon. She was an American nun who had arrived in Brazil in 1966 and had spent nearly four decades working alongside rural communities in the region. In Anapu, in the state of Pará, she helped small farmers obtain land, organize, and develop sustainable agriculture projects in an area marked by conflicts between farmers, large landowners, and interests tied to the exploitation of the land.
Her work also made her a target. Dorothy began receiving death threats, but she refused to abandon the families she worked with. “I don’t want to flee or abandon the struggle of these farmers who live without any protection in the forest”, she had written. On another occasion, she summed up her stance even more directly: “It is not my safety, but the safety of the people that matters”.
On February 12, 2005, Dorothy was walking to a meeting with farmers when two men intercepted her. One of them, Rayfran das Neves Sales, later confessed to shooting her. According to his testimony, the nun took out a Bible she was carrying and began reading a passage from the Gospel of Matthew before being shot six times at close range. She died at the scene.
The investigation linked the murder to land conflicts in the region. The case provoked a strong reaction in Brazil and once again drew international attention to the violence faced by rural communities in the Amazon. There was also a lengthy legal process to determine who had ordered the crime, with convictions and subsequent changes in the status of the accused.
Dorothy knew she was under threat and still chose to stay. For decades, she had built her life around the families she considered the most vulnerable, and until her final days, she remained committed to not abandoning them. When she died, she was 73 years old and had a Bible in her hands.