In Amazonas, reintegration of ownership leaves 500 families homeless in Itapuranga community

Ívina Garcia – from Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – Approximately, 500 families of the Itapuranga community, located on Torquato Tapajós Avenue, near the Igarapé da Bolívia, North zone, were homeless on Tuesday, 6, after a repossession carried out by the Military Police (PM) and the Manaus City Hall.

In the court decision, obtained by CENARIUM MAGAZINE‘s report, a construction company requested the retaking of the land. The judge Victor André Liuzzi Gomes gave a deadline of 48 hours for the residents to leave the site voluntarily.

Some residents spoke to the report and said they had not received the notification to leave voluntarily. They said that the signatures of residents on the document are not true and reported that police officers acted aggressively and called the residents “bums”.

“In the document it has the names of 12 people, but they didn’t sign this… Of being aware of the repossession. Nobody signed it”, said one of the residents, who did not want his name to be disclosed. “They have to prove this signature, it’s illegal, to forge a signature”, said another resident, who also preferred not to be identified.

They also said that the beginning of the action to remove the families was truculent on the part of the police. “They came in and gave us a deadline of 30 minutes to remove things, but in that time they were already invading and breaking everything, in this rush they ended up hitting some residents and people were injured”, said the man interviewed by the report.

“The indigenous person was beaten, he left bleeding, this is not something that should happen, because here we are dignified people, nobody here is a thief”, protested one of the residents of the Itapuranga community who said that the machines started working when there were still people in the houses.

Along the land, people were trying to save what they could. Members of the same family dug through the rubble looking for timber, slats and materials to try and build the houses elsewhere. “This is what’s left for us”.

According to the residents, some families have occupied the place for two years, others arrived a few months ago and the shacks were mostly improvised with holes in the floor for bathrooms and MDF wood sheets for walls.

Police from the Batalhão de Choque (Shock Battalion) were in charge of containment, preventing the residents from passing through the areas where the machines were working. In some parts there was fire on the ground, which could cause risk to those who tried to return to the site. “And where are we going now?” asked one of the residents.

Invasions

Recurrent in Manaus, the invasions are responsible for the creation of most of the neighborhoods already recognized and registered in the city. Having as characteristic the occupation of public and private land, the occupations cause risks to the urban fabric, especially when conducted near preservation areas.

In July this year, the Amazonas Public Ministry (MPAM) held an enforcement action and found the growth of invasions in Manaus. At the time, the data were not disclosed by the body, however, the Ministry conducted survey of the focuses and held meetings with officials to seek solutions to close the problem of invasions and occupations in green areas.