Brazil’s Yanomami region looks like concentration camp-Official
2023.01.24 15:41
Brazil’s Yanomami region looks like concentration camp-Official
By Kristina Sobol
Budrigannews.com – Indigenous Health Secretary Weibe Tapeba, a doctor appointed by Brazil’s new government, stated in a radio interview that the illegal gold miners in a region of the Yanomami reservation near the Venezuelan border had caused malnutrition and starvation. Tapeba said:
“It looks like a concentration camp,”
According to Tapeba, 700 members of the community were starving, and there was no healthcare because well-armed gold miners prevented medical personnel from entering the health post and prevented individuals from bringing in food and medicine supplies.
Following reports of children dying from malnutrition and other diseases brought on by gold mining, Brazil’s ministry of health declared a medical emergency on Friday in the Yanomami territory, the largest indigenous reservation in the country.
After images of Yanomami children and elderly people so thin that their ribs could be seen were published, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva paid a visit to the state on Saturday.
Tapeba stated:
“It’s an extreme calamity, many Yanomami are malnourished, and there is a total absence of the Brazilian state.”
He claimed that an invasion of more than 20,000 wildcat gold miners had poisoned the Yanomami’s fish by contaminating the rivers with mercury, citing children whose hair was falling out as a result of the mercury used to separate gold from ore.
“The heavily armed bandits prevent health teams from reaching this location. “The armed forces are the only ones who can get rid of the gold miners and solve this problem,” he stated.
The gold miners were ordered out of Brazil by the Supreme Court. However, the previous administration of the far-right President Jair Bolsonaro did not comply. According to Yanomami leaders, their requests for assistance were ignored.
During Bolsonaro’s four years in office, 570 Yanomami children died of curable diseases, mostly malnutrition, malaria, diarrhea, and birth defects brought on by mercury in the Amazon (NASDAQ:). Sumauma, a journalism platform, reported, citing FOIA-obtained data.
The reservation has been invaded by illegal gold miners for decades, but since Bolsonaro took office in 2018 and promised to allow mining on indigenous lands that were previously protected and to legalize wildcat mining, the incursions have increased.
On Monday, Justice Minister Flavio Dino stated:
that “evidence of genocide” was under investigation.
According to a study conducted by UNICEF and Brazil’s FioCruz biomedical research center in December, 8 out of 10 Yanomami had chronic malnutrition, and the number of children dying from preventable diseases was 13 times higher than the national average. Survival International issued a warning about the severity of the crisis.
Stated Fiona Watson, director of Survival International, in a statement:
“Under normal circumstances, the Yanomami rarely suffer from malnutrition. “They enjoy excellent health, their forests are abundant, and they are experts at growing, gathering, and hunting everything they need.”
She stated:
“This is a deliberate, man-made crisis that President Bolsonaro has stoked, encouraging the mass invasion and destruction of the Yanomami’s lands.”
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