Company will transport food; ministry says that the exemption from bidding was “imperative” because of the situation on site
The Ministry of Indigenous Peoples will hire an aircraft leasing company to transport food to the Yanomami Indigenous Land. The contract, worth R$185 million, will be signed without a bidding process.
The ministry told the newspaper The State of S. Paulo that the exemption from bidding was “imperative due to the pressing need suffered by the Yanomami people”. The speed of hiring, declared the agency, was necessary “to safeguard” the rights of the Yanomami.
The transportation of basic food baskets is being carried out by the Armed Forces, but the function will become the responsibility of the MPI from April onwards.
O Power360 released in February data obtained via LAI (Access to Information Law) on the number of Yanomami killed in the first year (2023) of the president's administration Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT). In total, there were 363, which represents an increase of 5.8% over the 343 deaths in the previous year, 2022, when the country was still led by Jair Bolsonaro (PL).
Indigenous people have been exposed to contact with miners and loggers who operate illegally in the region. There are also chronic cases of malnutrition and disease. The Yanomami have difficulty developing subsistence crops such as growing food and fishing. They are dependent on federal aid.
According to the Sesai (Indigenous Health Secretariat), a body linked to the Ministry of Health, the 2023 data are “preliminary” and are being “carefully investigated”. The secretariat states that the numbers for 2022 and previous years would be “underreported” because of “abandonment” of the Bolsonaro government.
Around 30,000 Yanomami live in a 96,000 km² reserve demarcated in the States of Roraima and Amazonas. It is an area larger than the territory of Portugal (92,000 km² for 10.6 million inhabitants).
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