Since the announcement of the first death of an Indigenous person due to COVID-19 in April 2020, the situation of Indigenous communities in Brazil has dramatically worsened. There are many factors that contribute to the rapid spread of the disease amongst the Indigenous communities, the most important of which are their particular vulnerability and the continuous threats that Indigenous lands face on all fronts.
The COVID-19 pandemic is far from being the only enemy that Indigenous communities in Brazil have had to fight. In a recent interview, Ailton Krenak, an indigenous leader who lives in the Krenak Indigenous Land, spoke about the difficulties faced by his people in recent years. The breaking of a dam in the city of Mariana in 2015 brought devastation and a serious humanitarian crisis. Built to accommodate the waste resulting from mining, the dam reached its limit and burst. Krenak remembered the mud floating on the river only 300 meters from his own house and explained that even today his community only has access to drinkable water by means of water trucks provided by the State.
This already dire situation has now been worsened by the COVID-19 virus, which, unlike mud, spreads silently and invisibly.
AN INDIGENOUS HEALTH CRISIS
Gathering data to understand how the pandemic is affecting Indigenous communities in Brazil is a challenge in and of itself. The discrepancies between the data provided by the Ministry of Health and the Brazil’s Indigenous People Articulation (APIB) are numerable: according to the health department, as of the 6th of October 29,000 people had been infected and 451 had died. The numbers provided by APIB are higher, with 35,000 infections and 838 deaths.
The state’s response to the situation faced by the Indigenous communities has proved inadequate. The budgetfor Indigenous health had already been reduced by 16% from 2018 to 2019. A national emergency plan was set up to assist Indigenous people during the pandemic, however communities face a variety of issues when trying to access payment. They usually have to travel to the closest city to receive this payment, which can take several days and leaves them at greater risk of contracting the virus on their way.
While the pandemic was setting unprecedented conditions on the lives of 800,000 indigenous people, the Brazilian government turned a blind eye to the increase of invasions and illegal mining in Indigenous lands that are protected by the constitution. The increase in fires in the Amazon rainforest highlighted to the world the serious condition of the region and its inhabitants. Nevertheless, President Bolsonaro said that Brazil is a global leader in preservation at the 75th session of the United Nations General Assembly, not taking into account the increase in deforestation in 2020.
The Yanomami National Reservation is the main focus of those invasions. At the United Nations Council for Human Rights, the director of the Hutukara Yanomami Association,
Maurício Ye’kwana described the crucial moment the biggest Indigenous land in Brazil is facing. The Yanomami land is not only the most vulnerable land for mining purposes, but also the most vulnerable land to the COVID-19 virus in the Amazon region.
If we are to succeed in the fight against COVID-19, then we must take into account those who are the most vulnerable. Indigenous communities around the country need to be included in the political debate about indigenous rights in Brazil. The Yanomami website #MinersOutCovidOut provides useful information for those who want to understand the crisis faced by the Yanomami people and find out how to help. The creation of a new app to track the pandemic inside Indigenous lands is another landmark for communities trying to fight a battle that the Brazilian state has decided to ignore. In the words of Ailton Krenak: “Now, there are some prophecies saying that the entire forest will end, and that its people who have lived in it since the beginning, will too. It is not the first time they prophetise our end, we have seen many prophecies. We buried all the prophets”.
Ana Luiza is a Social Science graduate from the University of Campinas. She is currently a Human Rights MA student at University College London (UCL). Her areas of interests are indigenous rights and conflict in socialist and post-socialist Eastern Europe.