In a moving video, indigenous people cry and demand federal government measures against Covid-19

Gabriel Abreu – From Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – With more than 65% of confirmed cases of the new coronavirus, the Park of the Tribes Community continues to ask for support from the public authorities to reduce the impacts of the pandemic on the community. The chief paid a visit this Thursday, 14, to indigenous people diagnosed with the disease, and in videos posted on social networks, he showed that there is a lack of medicines, food, and resources. Across the country, there are already more than 45 thousand indigenous people infected by Covid-19.

About 700 families are residing in the community located in the West Zone of Manaus, capital of Amazonas. Because of the increase in cases of Covid-19, the leaders are carrying out a project called “Saving Indigenous Lives of Park”.

The indigenous Eliane Kanamari, recently diagnosed with Covid-19, reported that she has had symptoms for more than a week. With body aches, tiredness, shortness of breath, in addition to the loss of taste and smell, she said, in a video about what she has been doing to reduce her symptoms. Because of the disease, she is isolated inside the house so that she does not transmit it to other people.

“We need to be helped. We need medicine and food, we need help and, for that, we need support from the government. We are really in need of help, for God’s sake we are in great need”, asks the indigenous woman.

With preventive measures to contain the contamination of Covid-19, the community was hit with unemployment, with those contaminated by the virus and even the loss of chief Messias Kokama, a victim of the disease. In another video posted on social media earlier this week, chief Micah Komama, who took over the community after his father’s death, calls for help from health authorities to curb the number of cases and deaths in the community.

Watch the full video:

Infected Indians

In Brazil, until this Friday, the 15th, 45,533 indigenous people were affected by Covid-19, according to data released by the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples (Apib). In total, 921 indigenous people add up to more than 200 thousand killed by the virus in the country.

Amazonas was the first state to have confirmation of contaminated indigenous people and today it concentrates the largest number of deaths among indigenous people.

“We draw attention to the fact that the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health (Sesai / Ministry of Health) is one of the main vectors for the expansion of the disease within indigenous territories, reaching the region with the largest number of isolated peoples in the world: the Javari Valley”, says a note from Apib.

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