In RR, indigenous Yanomami live in precarious situation because they cannot return home

Gabriel Abreu – Cenarium Magazine

BOA VISTA (RR) – The humanitarian crisis faced by the Yanomami Indians in Roraima shows a portrait of a parallel Brazil that goes beyond what is being published in the newspapers and news portals of the country. The challenge is not only to come to Boa Vista in search of medical attention, but to know if their health has been reestablished, how they will return to their community. In some cases, those who are unable to return end up living in inhumane conditions on the streets of Boa Vista.

Over the course of three days, the CENARIUM MAGAZINE journalist traveled the streets and highways of the city and noticed that, in addition to the considerable number of Venezuelans, there is also an influx of indigenous Yanomami living on the streets. In one of the cases, a group of six indigenous people live in a precarious situation on Avenida Glaycon de Paiva, near the Municipal Theater of Boa Vista. Abandoned and surviving with the help of donations from passers-by (see images below).

Precariousness

Besides living on the streets of Boa Vista for at least four months, the indigenous people suffer with prejudice. Some even threaten to throw stones or objects at people or vehicles passing by, as a form of self-defense. The majority of those who were at the site appear to be minors.

According to a local resident who did not want to be identified, the biggest problems are the drunkenness of the adolescents and children and the difficulty in communicating with the indigenous people, since there is a lack of translators to facilitate the process of understanding through dialogue.

Indígena em situação de rua na Avenida Glaycon de Paiva, Mecejana, Boa Vista (Ricardo Oliveira/Revista Cenarium)

Indígena

Indígena dormindo na

Indígena em situação de rua na Avenida Glaycon de Paiva, Mecejana, Boa Vista (Ricardo Oliveira/Revista Cenarium)

Five years after suffering a federal intervention due to the Venezuelan migration crisis, Roraima had only diminished impacts, but the migration continues. The governor of the state himself, Antonio Denarium (Progressives), said in a recent interview that every day 300 people pass through Pacaraima, a Brazilian city that borders Venezuela, 213 kilometers from the capital.

The precarious situation in the capital Boa Vista reflects the abandonment of human rights policies adopted by the Bolsonaro government, which had as minister the current senator for the Federal District Damares Alves, and shows how the country still needs to move forward.

The “blackout” of public policies was the result of a story in Veja Magazine that showed, in November 2021, that the Bolsonaro Government had been two years without evaluating the fulfillment of what is foreseen in the National Human Rights Plan.

Coordinated by Minister Silvio Almeida, holder of the new Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship (MDHC), a survey is being conducted by a team from the ministry that is in Boa Vista ascertaining the omissions observed in the 2019-2022 management of the federal government. According to a preliminary report, Bolsonaro and his ministers have been to Roraima five times.

However, in none of these missions were presented treaties against illegal mining, food security of the indigenous people living in that region or any other action in defense of human rights. And no visit was made to the Yanomami territory, even in the face of complaints and recommendations in favor of the human dignity of the native peoples.

Working group

In 2021, the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) created a working group in partnership with the National Indian Foundation (Funai) and state and municipal agencies. The focus of the work would be to plan actions on the Yawari indigenous migration to the streets of Boa Vista, Caracaraí, Iracema, and Mucajaí, in Roraima. The Yawari are a subgroup of the Yanomami ethnic group. At the time, the public prosecutor, Alisson Marugal informed that the group would guide the agencies in concrete situations, with the focus on children and adolescents.

“The idea is to discuss the problems that happened, and that are happening, for future occasions. It is not to judge, nor to point out the culprit. We are here to document an action plan that can guide the agencies in the concrete situations that may present themselves, with a special focus on children and adolescents,” said the prosecutor, Alisson Marugal.

When asked to comment on the results of the actions of this working group, the Federal Public Ministry did not respond as of the publication of this report.

Sociological Context

It is not only in the capital that there are records of these abandoned indigenous people, there is yet another factor, that of the indigenous women who walk with their children on their laps and still express concern. In some cases there have even been reports of people being run over, a speed radar was placed right at the entrance of the branch line [road] that gives access to the Casai to avoid accidents.

It is always in a large group. The report caught, at different times of the day, dozens of indigenous Yanomami and other ethnic groups walking on foot along the BR-174 highway.

About the street situation experienced by indigenous people, the professor of anthropology at the Federal University of Roraima (UFRR) Alexandro M. Namem stresses the need for a multidisciplinary approach for this part of the population.

“A multidisciplinary approach with doctors, social service, anthropologists, and especially bilingual or multilingual translators is necessary, because it is very difficult, in some situations, to communicate through Portuguese with people who are from other civilizations, as in the case of the indigenous people,” points out Alexandro.

He also emphasizes the care, the existence of dialogue and welcoming regarding the removal of indigenous people on the street: “This care must be taken, we can’t take them off the street by force. There has to be a conversation to see if they have the intention of being welcomed in some institution that is able to receive them and provide what they want, since the country is multiethnic and should even be recognized as a plurinational country”, he analyzes.

The anthropology professor highlights that the State’s mistaken political practice can cause great impacts. “The important point that we need to emphasize is that once the State omits itself and practices a mistaken, anti-indigenous policy, it causes much wider impacts than one can imagine. These populations, which are differentiated from us, have different ways of seeing the human being, and when you negatively impact a population that is differentiated, this impacts on ontology, mythology, and cosmology,” explains the professor.

Humanitarian Crisis

The Yanomami indigenous people are currently undergoing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis due to the invasion of illegal mining. It is estimated that there are 20,000 miners inside the largest indigenous reserve in Brazil, with more than 9.6 million hectares of forest. The Yanomami are seeing their territory being destroyed and children and babies are suffering the most from the impacts of mineral activity in the region.

The Ministry of Indigenous Peoples reported that 570 Yanomami, between 2019 and 2022, will die from mercury contamination, malnutrition and starvation because of the impact of illegal mining activities on Yanomami Indigenous Land.

The Ministry of Health has declared a state of emergency to combat the lack of health care affecting the Yanomami. Through an Emergency Operations Center (COE), the ministry “plans, organizes, coordinates, and controls the measures to be employed.

The actions are taking place in conjunction with state and municipal managers of the Unified Health System (SUS). The group linked to the emergency will propose to the ministry “the deployment of health teams, including the temporary hiring of professionals” and “the acquisition of goods and contracting of services needed for action” in the emergency.

Venezuelan Migration

With the worsening of the economic and social crisis in Venezuela, the flow of Venezuelan citizens to Brazil has grown, massively, in recent years. Between 2015 and May 2019, Brazil registered more than 178,000 refugee and temporary residence requests, according to information from the Unicef Brazil website. Most migrants enter the country through Brazil’s northern border, in the state of Roraima, and are concentrated in the municipalities of Pacaraima and Boa Vista, the state capital.

To accommodate part of this population, 11 official shelters have been created in Boa Vista and two in Pacaraima. They are run by the Armed Forces and the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). More than 6,300 people, of whom 2,500 are children and adolescents, live there.

It is estimated that nearly 32,000 Venezuelans are living in Boa Vista. Projections by local authorities and humanitarian agencies indicate that 1.5 thousand Venezuelans are living on the streets in the capital, among them, almost 500 are under 18 years old.