Four Indigenous people, including a child, were shot during an attack in southern Brazil late on Friday, federal police and an Indigenous rights organization said on Saturday, as violence escalates in the region.

Attackers opened fire against the Indigenous community near the city of Guaira, in the southern Parana state, injuring four people, later hospitalized, the police said.

The attack was aimed at the Avá Guarani people, who have been the target of previous assaults since Dec. 29, the Missionary Council for Indigenous Peoples (CIMI), an organization linked to the Catholic Bishops Conference of Brazil, said.

A four-year-old child shot in the leg was sent to a nearby hospital in the city of Toledo, alongside two other people, one hit in the leg and the other in the back, said CIMI.