President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) and the Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara, are due to go to Roraima, this Saturday, 21st, to visit the Yanomami territory, which has suffered from cases of food insecurity, child malnutrition and lack of population access to health. The announcement of the trip was made by both on Friday, the 20th.
Since the beginning of the week, technicians from the Ministry of Health have been in the indigenous land, where 30,400 people live, to make a diagnosis of the living conditions of the local population. The proposal is to survey the situation, identify the demands of the indigenous peoples of the region and establish the actions to be taken so that the Yanomami overcome a scenario of “humanitarian crisis”, as described by Sonia Guajajara herself.
“We received information about the absurd situation of malnutrition of Yanomami children in Roraima”, wrote President Lula on his social networks. “Tomorrow I will travel to the state to offer the support of the federal government and, together with our ministers, we will act to guarantee the lives of Yanomami children”, stated the representative.
According to minister Sônia Guajajara, 570 Yanomami children “died of hunger during the last government”. “The Ministry of Indigenous Peoples will take urgent measures around this humanitarian crisis imposed against our peoples”, said the head of the ministry in a post on her twitter, also made this Friday.
“At President Lula’s request, we will visit the Yanomami Indigenous Land tomorrow for an emergency inter-ministerial action. Our Yanomami relatives face a humanitarian and health crisis. It is inadmissible to see our relatives die of malnutrition and hunger,” Guajajara posted.
The task is being led by the Ministry of Health, and has the support of the National Foundation for Indigenous Peoples (Funai), the Ministry of Defense, local indigenous leaders, government agencies of cities and the State of Roraima, the Federal University of Roraima, in addition to the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO).
The technical team that works on site is divided into two: one works in the city of Boa Vista, and the other in the regions of Surucucu and Xitei, areas that are difficult to access and that require support from the Ministry of Defense to be able to reach them.
One of the problems plaguing the region is the constant armed conflicts with garimpeiros, whose mining activities in indigenous lands grew 495% between 2010 and 2020.
Last year, Júnior Hekurari, an indigenous leader, reported that people in the community were murdered in the midst of these clashes. The Federal Police, at the time, did not confirm the deaths. Also in 2022, according to the indigenous leader, a 12-year-old Yanomami girl was raped to death by prospectors in the Aracaçá community, in the Waikás area.
Cases of malnutrition and food insecurity among the child population are also present among the approximately five thousand Yanomami children, according to the current government. The difficulty for professionals to reach the sites, aggravated by the insecurities of the conflicts, makes the region even more vulnerable and unassisted by the public authorities.
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