The novel coronavirus outbreak has intensified a decadeslong battle between indigenous tribes and evangelical Christian missionaries in the most remote regions of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, as tribes warning of the viruss potential to cause their genocide have pushed to ban controversial religious groups from entering their lands.

On Thursday, a Brazilian judge granted the tribes wishes, barring missionaries from entering the Javari Valley, a remote region along Brazils border with Peru that is home to numerous indigenous tribes and at least 16 groups of isolated peoples those who have no known contact with outside communities.

The ruling specifically named three missionaries, as well as New Tribes Mission of Brazil, a 67-year-old fundamentalist Christian organization that is affiliated with a larger evangelical missionary group in the United States. New Tribes also has deep ties to the right-wing government of President Jair Bolsonaro , who in February tapped Ricardo Lopes Dias, a former New Tribes missionary, to head the agency that is supposed to protect Brazils isolated peoples.

Tribal groups in the Javari Valley and across Brazil have long opposed encroachments from missionaries. Their concerns about New Tribes intensified in the early months of 2020, The Guardian reported , thanks to the coronavirus outbreak and the groups recent purchase of a helicopter it said would help it reach tribes in corners of the valley it hasnt previously accessed. The organization bought the chopper after raising more than $2 million alongside Ethnos360, a U.S.-based missionary group that was until recently known as New Tribes Mission, and of which New Tribes Mission of Brazil is an affiliate.

UNIVAJA, a group of indigenous tribes from across the Javari Valley region, sought the injunction after the Brazilian newspaper O Globo reported that missionaries from New Tribes Mission of Brazil had continued to fly the helicopter on missions across the valley in late March, in trips the newspaper said may have occurred in violation of government aviation regulations and restrictions on contact with indigenous tribes during the pandemic.

New Tribes Mission of Brazil denies that the flights have continued, and said in a statement to HuffPost that it ordered missionaries to leave indigenous lands in March. But the organizations history in Brazil has sown deep mistrust among indigenous leaders there, who argue that the potential dangers missionaries pose to tribal groups during the pandemic should force the world to understand their opposition to religious intrusion even in normal times.

We have long denounced these religious organizations for violating Brazilian laws, disrespecting our internal relationships, ways of life and forms of thinking about the world, UNIVAJA said in a statement after the ruling. Now these groups physically expose us to a lethal virus that is ravaging humanity. We are survivors of previous genocidal plagues. We will continue denouncing the unwelcome missionaries, who harm us and our homeland.

Brazil now has more than 30,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19, although the actual number is likely far higher. The virus has reached the Amazon in Manaus, the forest regions largest city, hospitals are already near their capacity and cases among indigenous tribes have tripled in the last week. If it continues to spread into remote regions like the Javari Valley and other areas with large indigenous populations, it could be disastrous for communities that are already neglected by the Brazilian government.

If the coronavirus goes to indigenous lands, it will be a tragedy because we have no protected area, no proper investment in health and equipment to protect the indigenous, said Joenia Wapichana, who became the first indigenous woman ever elected to Brazils Congress in 2018.

The dispute is not just about a helicopter and a missionary organization. Its also about Bolsonaros ongoing evisceration of Brazils existing infrastructure to protect its indigenous tribes and isolated peoples, and the deep fears many indigenous tribes have of both missionary groups and the current government two perceived enemies that became even more closely linked with Lopes Dias appointment on the eve of Brazils COVID-19 outbreak.

Im very, very worried, said Beatriz de Almeida Matos, an anthropologist at Brazils Federal University of Para who has studied indigenous cultures in the Javari Valley. We know from history that this kind of contact is very, very dangerous.

They think they are doing what Gods sending them to do, said Matos, who also works for the Observatory of Policies for Isolated Indigenous Peoples, a nonprofit organization. So they dont care about the disease. They dont care about coronavirus. They dont care about death. They are certain they are doing what God sends them to do on Earth.

Highly Active Culture Change Agents

Headquartered in Sanford, Florida, Ethnos360 has deployed Christian missionaries to Brazil and other parts of the world since its founding in 1942. Its main mission is to reach people in areas where there are no existing translations of the Bible, and it focuses heavily on indigenous populations. It claims to have translated the New Testament into 88 ethnic languages and says it is in the process of translating it into 114 more, according to Ministry Watch , which compiles information on Christian charities.

The groups beliefs are rooted in a literalist reading of Biblical texts, said Daniel Everett, a linguist and former Christian missionary who became familiar with New Tribes Mission during his time in the Brazilian Amazon.

Theyre an extremely conservative, fundamentalist evangelical group, Everett, who is now an atheist , told HuffPost. Theyre out to definitely convert tribespeople of Brazil to evangelical Christianity as they know it from the USA.

The organizations efforts are rigorous: It has constructed a replica version of a Brazilian indigenous village in Pennsylvania to train missionaries, the BBC Brazil reported in 2018. New Tribes missionaries spend years trying to make contact with indigenous peoples, learning their language, translating the Gospel into that language, and converting locals to Christianity. They often entice members with food, medicines and basic tools that tribes otherwise wouldnt be able to access, Everett said.

Theyre highly active culture change agents, he said. And theyre unapologetic about that.

Ethnos360, which did not respond to requests for comment, is funded almost entirely by charitable donations. In 2018, the U.S. operation took in nearly $60 million in contributions, according to Ministry Watch.

The U.S. group changed its name in recent years after a widespread and heavily publicized investigation into allegations of rampant child sexual abuse within its international chapters.

Ethnos360 has a long and harsh track record across South America, said Fiona Watson, a Brazil researcher at Survival International , a nonprofit that advocates for the protection of isolated peoples and has campaigned against New Tribes for decades. The New Tribes Mission of Brazil is probably the most aggressive and hardline of all the evangelical missionary organizations in the country, Watson said, and its history there is also marked by controversy.

In the 1980s, missionaries from New Tribes made contact with the Zo indigenous people in northern Brazil. The groups missionaries were eventually expelled in 1991, after nearly one-quarter of the tribes members died from various infectious disease outbreaks, according to Survival International . Another New Tribes representative in Brazil was imprisoned after he placed indigenous peoples in slavelike conditions.

Still, the New Tribes Mission of Brazil feels it has not kept pace with evangelical movements (many also backed by U.S. groups) that have made inroads in Brazils urban centers. The countrys indigenous people speak more than 180 languages, but only 26 have the complete New Testament translated into their languages, a blog post on its website laments .

The helicopter was the key to rapidly advancing New Tribes work in the Javari Valley. The chopper would open the door for its missionaries to reach 10 additional people groups living in extreme isolation, Ethnos360 said on its website. In a YouTube video that promoted the fundraising drive, an American missionary noted that the Javari Valley was home to the highest concentration of uncontacted people groups anywhere in the world.

This is why we need a helicopter, said the missionary, who also said he had worked for Ethnos360 in Brazil since 2006. The group exceeded its $2 million goal. (In a similar fundraiser for its chapter in the Philippines, Ethnos360 refers to a helicopter as The Barrier Crusher .)

Missionaries from New Tribes visited at least one indigenous village in the Javari Valley in late February, not long before Brazil reported its first confirmed case of COVID-19, according to local tribal leaders .

On March 17, as the coronavirus outbreak spread across Brazil, the countrys justice and health ministries ordered nonindigenous Brazilians to avoid making contact with tribes in order to protect them from the outbreak. New Tribes Mission of Brazil, however, continued flying to the Javari Valley anyway, O Globo reported last week.

Edward Luz, the head of New Tribes Mission of Brazil, initially told the newspaper that all of New Tribes missionaries had left the region in late February. O Globo, however, reported that at least one missionary had remained into mid-March, prompting Luz to say that the group had flown a final rescue mission to remove him on March 19. After O Globos report was published, Luz disputed the papers reporting in an online statement . But he also changed the date of the final flight again, saying that the last missionary and two others left the valley via helicopter on March 23.

Citing an unnamed source in the region, O Globo reported that the same helicopter made at least three trips in the Javari Valley in the final days of March and in early April. A spokesman for FUNAI, the government agency charged with protecting indigenous lands and rights in Brazil, told HuffPost that it authorized no such trips during that window, and was not aware of any that were made.