Reports of child starvation in Indigenous Brazilian territory spark calls for military intervention
Brazil's health secretary urged the eviction of gold miners in the Yanomani Indigenous territory who have caused starvation and malnutrition impacting children.
BRASILIA, Brazil — Brazil’s military should evict illegal gold miners who have caused malnutrition and starvation in a region of the Yanomami reservation near the Venezuelan border, Indigenous Health Secretary Weibe Tapeba said on Tuesday.
“It looks like a concentration camp,” Tapeba, a doctor appointed to the position by Brazil’s new government, said in a radio interview.
Tapeba said 700 members of the community were going hungry and healthcare is non-existent due to presence of well-armed gold miners that scared away medical workers from the health post and block people from bringing in supplies of medicine and food.
Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, left, visits the Yanomami Indigenous Health House in the Boa Vista rural area of Roraima state in Brazil on Saturday.Ricardo Stuckert / Brazilian Presidency via AFP - Getty ImagesBrazil’s ministry of health on Friday declared a medical emergency in the Yanomami territory, the country’s largest indigenous reservation, following reports of children dying of malnutrition and other diseases brought by gold mining.
On Saturday, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva visited the state following the publication of photos showing Yanomami children and elderly people so thin their ribs were visible.
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