How the Yanomami crisis is going, one year after emergency

Images of malnourished indigenous people, malaria outbreaks, mining in full swing, contaminated rivers. The January 2023 scenario repeats itself one year after the government declared an emergency in the Yanomami TI. What has been done since then? A year ago, the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva government declared an emergency in the Yanomami Indigenous Land (TI), in the north of the country. The humanitarian tragedy in the territory was serious, with hundreds of cases of extreme malnutrition caused by famine and diseases caused by mining.

Images of malnourished indigenous people, with their bones exposed, shocked the country, and the crisis gained the attention of the recently installed government. A decree with emergency measures was published on January 20, 2023. At the time, Lula traveled to Roraima to see the situation of the Yanomami up close and described it as a genocide. There, he promised to put an end to illegal mining.

The position of the new government contrasted with that of the previous administration, of Jair Bolsonaro, which encouraged the expansion of mining in the Amazon and dismantled environmental protection agencies, such as the Brazilian Institute of the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (Ibama), in addition to demobilizing indigenous policy in Brazil.

But what was done throughout 2023 and to what extent did the emergency actions have an effect? One year after Lula's declaration, the situation of the Yanomami is critical. Mainly in the second half of 2023, mining resumed its strength in strategic points – which fuels the humanitarian crisis among indigenous people, as it strongly affects access to food and water, and causes cases of malaria and other diseases to explode in the territory.

In an interview with the G1 portal, the Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sônia Guajajara, said that the government implemented many actions to guarantee health and access to food and drinking water, as well as to remove invaders, but acknowledged that they were “insufficient”. According to Guajajara, it would not be possible to resolve the situation in a year.

The culmination of a years-long crisis

12 months ago, the emergency at the Yanomami TI was the culmination of a crisis that had been brewing for years. The dismantling of indigenous health during the four years of the Bolsonaro government led several indigenous communities to collapse. Many died amid shortages of medicine and access to healthcare.

Between 2019 and 2022, the federal government recorded the deaths of at least 570 Yanomami children, most of them due to treatable diseases such as malnutrition, malaria and diarrhea. The number could be even higher, amid a blackout in indigenous health data.

Malaria spread in the indigenous land through miners. In 2022, almost 40% of the Yanomami population had a confirmed diagnosis of the disease: there were 11,530 cases in a territory of around 30 thousand inhabitants, according to data from the Ministry of Health.

Despite preventable illnesses and deaths, the journey of health professionals to the villages was blocked by miners, who took control of health centers and airstrips. Health professionals need to travel by plane to be able to serve 95% of the Yanomami population, spread across 384 difficult-to-reach villages in the forest.

What was done in one year?

Throughout 2023, the Lula government spent R$1 billion on all emergency actions aimed at combating the humanitarian crisis in the Yanomami TI. Among the measures are the distribution of food, medical assistance to the population and the removal of miners from the area.

Right at the beginning of the humanitarian mission, more than a thousand indigenous people with serious health problems and extremely vulnerable situations were rescued, according to the government.

Throughout 2023, six base centers for the provision of humanitarian aid and assistance were reopened, which were closed. In these locations, 307 children diagnosed with severe or moderate malnutrition recovered.

The number of professionals working in the territory increased by 40%, from 690 to 960 between 2022 and 2023. Investment was also made in carrying out mass tests to detect malaria, which totaled more than 140 thousand in 2023.

In total, the government said it had invested more than R$220 million to restructure access to healthcare for indigenous people in the territory – the amount represents more than double (122%) the previous year.

Furthermore, according to the Presidency, 98 thousand basic food baskets were sent to Yanomami communities throughout 2023, with 35 thousand still remaining in distribution units and should be delivered in the coming months.

The government also says that it has prioritized the recovery of indigenous people's ability to produce their own food. The initiative involves the recovery of rivers and degraded land, as well as the delivery of tools, seeds and inputs that allow the Yanomami to resume cultivating traditional gardens.

For this purpose, 12,500 food production kits and 1,875 flour mills were delivered, according to data from the Ministry of Social Development. There was also the purchase of 6,250 kits for agricultural production and 6,250 kits for fishing.

To address the situation of lack of assistance, the government said it had acted to promote indigenous people's access to social programs. Currently, there are 18 thousand beneficiaries of Bolsa Família.

Furthermore, with the participation of the National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples (Funai), the government launched an environmental monitoring project to assess the presence of chemical substances commonly used in mining activities in rivers in the Amazon basin.

The indiscriminate use of mercury in gold extraction and the proliferation of these activities in the region have caused direct damage to indigenous and riverside populations, as the substance contaminates the water.

This contaminated water increases cases of diarrhea, poisoning and parasites among indigenous people. With the excavation of land for mining activities, these places also became breeding grounds for mosquitoes, such as the carrier of malaria. Not to mention that rivers are a source of food for indigenous people, through fishing and hunting. With unsafe water, fish die and other animals move away from the region.

Funai also signed a contract worth almost R$70 million with Infraero for improvement works on five landing and take-off runways located in the Yanomami TI, in order to expand the essential services offered to indigenous people.

Removal of invaders

Another front of emergency actions was the repression of illegal mining. This included the creation of a task force to remove invaders from the territory, which involved Ibama, Federal Police, Funai, National Force and other government bodies.

Agents focused on blocking the flow of supplies to miners, such as fuel, food and internet antennas, as well as seizing and destroying infrastructure for illegal mining, including aircraft, engines, boats and camps.

In TI Yanomami and its surroundings, inspectors carried out 205 inspections of airstrips. As a result, 31 lanes were blocked and 209 were monitored. The result, according to the federal government, was an 85% reduction in areas for illegal mining in the territory, between February and December 2023, compared to the same period of the previous year.

But inspection agents told the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo that many invaders returned to areas that were already open, somet
hing that was camouflaged by satellite images. According to these agents, around 3,000 invaders remain in the territory, one year after the start of removal operations. At the height of the crisis, there were 20 thousand.

Many of Ibama's operations have seen violence. There were at least ten episodes in which inspectors were shot at by miners in the Yanomami TI.

In April, an operation resulted in the death of four criminals who responded to the incursion by shooting. One of them was a fugitive from justice and leader of a criminal faction. At the time, federal agents seized 11 weapons, including a rifle.

Furthermore, the Federal Police are carrying out almost 400 investigations related to mining in the Yanomami TI alone. Among the targets are major sponsors of the illegal gold trade. Throughout 2023, R$589 million in assets of those under investigation were seized.

Throughout the year, the Federal Police launched 13 operations, which resulted in 114 search and seizure warrants and 175 arrests in the act.

Situation on indigenous land today

In addition to the return of mining, the numbers show that the situation in the Yanomami Indigenous Land has worsened again to levels similar to those of 2022. Authorities warn, however, that the current data is more realistic than that collected during the Bolsonaro government, when there was underreporting and a smaller presence of health teams in the territory.

According to data from the previous government, throughout 2022, 345 indigenous people died in the Yanomami TI. Between January and November 2023, there were 308 deaths – more than half, children up to four years old. According to the Ministry of Health, the main causes were respiratory, parasitic and malnutrition-related diseases.

Malaria also continued to affect the indigenous population. Throughout 2023, 25,200 cases of the disease were recorded, an increase of 61% compared to 2022, when around 15,000 were recorded.

The situation is especially critical in the Auaris region, a corner of Brazil surrounded by Venezuela, where 4,000 indigenous people live. Authorities believe that all Yanomami in the region had malaria in 2023: there were 6,917 positive cases there alone. It was also the region with the most deaths in 2023: 55, taking into account all causes.

Just like in the previous January, heartbreaking images of Yanomami in critical situations – such as malnourished children with visible bones – returned to circulation at the beginning of 2024, showing that the health crisis persists in the territory.

The environmental damage caused by illegal mining also remains. Recent images show that the water in the rivers in the Yanomami TI has returned to a muddy color, linked to mining activity, which contaminates it and makes it unfit for consumption.

In July 2023, a report by Fiocruz in partnership with the National Institute for Space Research (Inpe) stated that 61% of the territory's rivers were affected by mining.

What will be done in 2024?

On January 9, 2024, the federal government announced that emergency actions will be replaced by permanent actions in the Yanomami Indigenous Land. R$1.2 billion will be invested in 2024, and the Federal Police and Armed Forces will have a continuous presence in the territory.

A “government house” will also be created in Boa Vista, Roraima, with representatives from different ministries, to monitor the execution of these actions and public policies.

The announcement was made after a ministerial meeting led by Lula to discuss the Yanomami crisis, but more details about the ongoing actions are yet to be released.

“We are going to treat the indigenous issue and the Yanomami issue as a State issue, that is, we are going to have to make an even greater effort, using all the power that the public machine can have”, declared the president during the meeting on 9 of January. “It is not possible that we can lose a war against illegal mining, against illegal loggers, against people who are doing things against what the law determines.”