Indigenous community killed by miners is destroyed by fire and residents disappear, says Yanomami

Bruno Pacheco – from Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – The president of the District Council of Indigenous Health Yanomami and Ye’kuana (Condisi-YY), Júnior Hekurari Yanomami, said on Thursday, 28, that the village Aracaçá, in the region of Waikás and Palimíu, in Roraima, was destroyed by fire and the residents disappeared.

The place was where the 12 year old Yanomami teenager, sexually abused and killed by miners, lived. According to the indigenous leader, the suspicion is that the body of the young girl was cremated, as part of a common and traditional funeral ritual of the ethnic group.

According to the report of the indigenous leader to CENARIUM MAGAZINE, the situation was observed after the visit to the community conducted by the council, the Federal Police (PF) and the Federal Public Ministry (MPF). Furthermore, according to Júnior Yanomami, groups of non-indigenous residents, but who live in the region and work together with miners, are trying to hinder the investigations of the authorities.

“They have confused the information for us. The original community is not there, it was burned down. We believe that, with this burning, the body was also cremated so that the indigenous people can perform their ritual,” reported Júnior Yanomami. Also according to the president of Condisi-YY, he was told that the indigenous people had received guidance and money from miners to carry out the funeral ceremony.

Destruction

In videos sent by Junior Yanomami to CENARIUM, it is possible to see the destruction caused by the fire in Aracaçá. According to the president of Condisi-YY, abandoning a community after the death of a family member is also a culture belonging to the Yanomami of the region, as in the case of the teenager killed and sexually abused by miners.

“According to what I spoke to the Yanomami leaders, when someone dies they abandon the community,” said the president of Condisi-YY.

In the region, at least 24 Yanomami Indians were living in stilt houses on the banks of the Uraricoera River. In another video recorded during a helicopter flight over the community, Junior Yanomami shows the abandoned houses and villages in the middle of the Amazon forest.

Adolescent Yanomami

The case of the 12 year old girl was denounced on Monday the 25th by Júnior Hekurari Yanomami. On social networks, the indigenous leader reported that the girl’s death occurred when a group of men from the mines invaded the community and took the girl and two other women. The kidnapping attempt resulted in the disappearance of a 4-year-old child, the daughter of one of the adults, who disappeared into the Uraricoera river.

It is suspected that the child and the mother were trying to defend themselves from the miners when the woman’s daughter fell off balance from the boat they were sailing in. The indigenous people, revolted and upset by the situation, were told not to react because the miners might be heavily armed.

The community is in the municipality of Alto Alegre, on Yanomami land. The region has become a target for illegal gold mining and is the route used by miners to reach illegal camps in the middle of the forest. With 27 thousand indigenous people, the region is considered the largest indigenous reserve in Brazil, covering almost 10 million hectares between the states of Roraima and Amazonas.

In a statement published on Wednesday, 27, the Hutukara Yanomami Association (HAY) also spoke out about the episode and demanded the withdrawal of miners from the region of Waikás, in Roraima. The association stressed that it is following the case and stressed that, if confirmed, the episode of sexual violence against children and adolescents is not the only one that has occurred in the region.

In addition to the association, Minister Cármen Lúcia of the Federal Supreme Court (STF) asked on Thursday, 28, for an investigation and clarification of the factors surrounding the death of the indigenous girl. The request was made during the opening session of the STF. Carmén Lúcia said that Brazilian women are living a “debacle of inhumanities”.

“It is not possible to be silent or to omit oneself before the breakdown of inhumanities criminally imposed on Brazilian women, among which, the indigenous women, who are being killed by the inhuman and uncontained ferocity of some,” said the minister.

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