Lula demands urgent humanitarian aid for Yanomami indigenous people
Members of the National Force of the Brazilian public health care system (SUS) began arriving in Roraima on Monday (Jan. 23) to provide multidisciplinary care to the Yanomami people, mainly focused on food readjustment, since the main problem is severe malnutrition, especially among children.
The Armed Forces will also set up a field hospital near the Indigenous Health Support House in Boa Vista, the state capital. In addition, the government will send medical supplies and food to the communities.
Since last Monday (16), working teams from the ministry of Health have been in the Yanomami indigenous territory and are expected to present a complete survey of the critical health situation of this indigenous group. The region has more than 30.4 thousand inhabitants.
Inhumane treatment
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva traveled to Roraima on Saturday (21), where he could see up close the health crisis affecting the indigenous people, victims of malnutrition and other diseases such as malaria and pneumonia. He ordered urgent humanitarian aid to the Yanomami people.
The situation has led to the death of 570 children in recent years, 505 of whom were less than 1 year old. In 2022, 11,530 confirmed cases of malaria were recorded on the Yanomami land.
"If someone told me that here in Roraima people are being treated in the inhumane way that the Yanomami people are treated, I wouldn't believe it," Lula said. "We will treat our indigenous people as human beings, who are responsible for part of what we are," he added.
Lula visited the hospital and the support house in Boa Vista. For him, improvements can happen from changes in behavior. "One of the ways to solve this is to set up a health service in the villages, to take care of them there. It is easier for us to transport ten doctors than 200 indigenous people who are here," the president said. "We want to show that SUS [Brazilian public health care system] is capable of doing a job that honors and makes the Brazilian people proud of, as it did during the COVID-19 [pandemic]," he explained.
Today, about 700 indigenous people are being treated at the support house, most of them are children with severe malnutrition.
For the president, one of the priority actions is to organize a logistics network for transporting supplies and people between the villages and the city, such as improving aircraft landing strips in regions closer to the communities. "It can't be done in a few hours, but my commitment is to do it," Lula said.
About 200 indigenous people who are in the support house have been discharged but have not been able to return to their villages due to lack of transportation. "I made a commitment to these indigenous brothers that we will give them the dignity they deserve in health, in education, in food, in the right to come and go to do the things they need in the city," Lula added.
Mining
The Yanomami indigenous land is the largest one in the country, in territorial extension, and suffers from the invasion of miners. The contamination of the land and water by the mercury used in mining impacts the availability of food and the health of the communities.
President Lula pledged to combat illegalities on indigenous lands. "It is important for people to know that this country has changed government and the [new] government will now act with the seriousness in treating the people that this country had forgotten," he added.
