Brazilian officials have said that the Yanomami Indigenous people are living in dire conditions, as illegal gold miners threaten them with violence and block the delivery of goods such as food and medicine to their embattled region.
On Tuesday, Indigenous Health Secretary Weibe Tapeba said that the government should evict the miners — some of whom are well armed — from an area of the Yanomami reservation near the border with Venezuela.
“It looks like a concentration camp,” Tapeba said of the Yanomami’s living conditions in a radio interview. “It’s an extreme calamity. Many Yanomami are suffering from malnutrition and there is a total absence of the Brazilian state.”
The statement comes three days after Brazil declared a public health emergency for the Yanomami people in the Amazon rainforest, who suffer from malnutrition and diseases like malaria due to the actions of the miners.
Under former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, critics have said the government largely stood by as Indigenous rights were violated and forests were torched, allowing business interests to illegally extend their reach into the Amazon.
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Article URL : https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/1/24/calls-for-action-as-brazil-yanomami-indigenous-people-face-crisis