During the Jair Bolsonaro administration (Liberal Party), between 2019 and 2022, the Secretariat of Indigenous Health (Sesai) recorded a total of 3,552 deaths of indigenous children aged between 0 and 4 years in Brazil. The information is found in the Violence Against Indigenous Peoples in Brazil Report, released by the Missionary Council for Indigenous Peoples (Cimi) this Wednesday, July 26, in Brasília (Federal District), with data from 2022.
The records provided by the secretariat through the Access to Information Law reveal the occurrence of 835 deaths of indigenous children in this age group last year.
"Children are the biggest victims of this scenario of violence", summarized Professor Lucia Helena Rangel, one of the publication coordinators.
The report
The report provides a record of four years of total stoppage on the demarcations of indigenous lands, an increase in conflicts, invasions of territories and the dismantling of public policies aimed at indigenous peoples and the agencies responsible for overseeing and protecting their territories.
"We are facing a scenario of horrors. They are horrors committed against people, nature, spirits, against all peoples", pointed out Lucia Helena Rangel.
The desolate scenario was evidenced in cases such as the deaths of the indigenist Bruno Pereira and the British journalist Dom Phillips, both brutally murdered in June in the Indigenous Land (TI) region of Javari Valley (state of Amazonas), and by the unprecedented health and environmental crisis in the Yanomami territory, generated by the expansion of illegal mining.
The Cimi survey, organized into three chapters, gathers data on violations of indigenous territorial rights, such as conflicts, invasions and damage to territories; violence against the person, such as murders and threats; and violations by omission by public authorities, such as lack of assistance in the areas of health and education, infant mortality and suicides.
"It was a criminal government that committed a series of abuses, absurd excesses and that until now has gone unpunished", added Rangel.
Information was obtained from public sources such as the Special Secretariat for Indigenous Health (Sesai), the Mortality Information System (SIM) and state health secretariats.
The launch event of Cimi's annual publication, last Wednesday, took place at the headquarters of the National Conference of Brazilian Bishops (CNBB) and was attended by indigenous leaders and representatives of CNBB and Cimi, among them, Dom Ricardo Hoepers, general secretary of the CNBB; Dom Roque Paloschi, president of Cimi and archbishop of Porto Velho (state of Rondônia); Antônio Eduardo Cerqueira de Oliveira, Executive Secretary of Cimi.
Negligence by the public authorities regarding the Yanomami humanitarian crisis
The cases of violence against indigenous peoples by omission by public authorities systematized in the report are some of the most surprising. It is in this part that come into play the alarming data on the lack of assistance on the part of the government, which generated the humanitarian crisis that affects the Yanomami people in Roraima.
"Due to mercury, we currently drink contaminated river water. From there on, our suffering begins. It is sad to see a mother lose her child", pointed out Júlio Ye'kwana, president of the Association Wanasseduume Ye'kwana (state of Roraima).
"We indigenous peoples, for four years, fought, resisted, and did not give up. To this day we are not giving up", completed in his speech the leadership, who also highlighted that the current government has to create strategies to face the mining, called by him as "criminal factions".
“It has been difficult to resolve the problems that have been caused. Currently, the government is trying to fix it, but it's been difficult for us, because there are still powerful people who act against indigenous peoples. But we will not give up. We are strong. Because we are in our land. In the land called Brazil. I was born here. This is my land,” he said.
“Our forest has been destroyed, rivers have been contaminated, sacred places have been destroyed. Our knowledge is going away. We are concerned because we have a great connection with nature. Nature sustains us, and indigenous peoples sustain nature. We want to live in peace,” he added.
Violence due to territorial conflicts
In 2022, the anti-indigenous stance of the Bolsonaro administration was also reflected in the increase in conflicts over territorial rights, with 158 registered cases across the country. Illegal exploitation of resources, possession invasions and damage to the property of indigenous peoples totaled 309 cases, in at least 218 indigenous lands in 25 states of Brazil.
In states such as Mato Grosso do Sul, Maranhão and Bahia, conflicts resulted in murders, including the involvement of police forces. This was the case of the death of Gustavo Silva da Conceição, a 14-year-old Pataxó boy, brutally murdered in the Comexatibá Indigenous Land, in the extreme south of Bahia, during one of several shooting attacks carried out by groups that the indigenous people define as “militiamen”.
In a video shown at the beginning of the event, Candara Pataxó returned to the scene of the attack to show the marks of the shots that took her son's life.
"There were more children too. I'm in this fight because I know the value he had, so that this doesn't happen to other children, because there are other children who have dreams", punctuated the mother.
Present at the table, Erilsa Pataxó, deputy chief of the Barra Velha Indigenous Land (state of Bahia), moved with emotion, continued the relative's denunciation. "They arrived delimiting our territory, and today we no longer have rights. When we go to fight, our people are killed", she pointed out in her speech.
"Currently we are being attacked from all sides. Today we begin to suffer inside our mother's womb", she added.
Currently, 62% of the 1,391 indigenous lands and territorial claims existing in Brazil still lack regularization, according to Cimi. Among the 867 pending indigenous lands, at least 588 had no State action for their demarcation.
These territories still await the creation of Technical Groups (TGs) by Funai (National Indigenous Foundation), responsible for proceeding with the identification and delimitation of these areas. The few TGs opened or recreated in 2022 were only constituted by court order in lawsuits filed by the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) – and none of them completed their work.
“Funai was criminal during those four years. All the deaths that took place during that period, of indigenists, indigenous people, women, children, are the result of such irresponsibility that Funai committed at that time”, pointed out Lucia Helena Rangel.
Indigenous people are rescued after an attack by illegal miners in Yanomami territory/ Antonio ALVARADO / Urihi Yanomami Association / AFP
Murders
Regarding the murders of indigenous people in 2022, 180 cases were recorded throughout Brazil. As in the previous three years, the states of Roraima, Mato Grosso do Sul and Amazonas continue to be the states that recorded the highest number of indigenous murders, with 41, 38, and 30 cases respectively. Data are from Sesai, from the Mortality Information System (SIM) and from state health departments.
Cimi found in the report that these three states accounted for 65% of the 795 homicides of indigenous people recorded between 2019 and 2022.
Among these cases, the murders of Guarani and Kaiowá leaders, such as Marcio Moreira and Vitorino Sanches, stand out in the months following the case known as the “Guapoy Massacre”, which killed Kaiowá Vitor Fernandes.
Josiel Kaiowá, Guarani Kaiowá leader in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, is a survivor of the massacre. Present at the event, he points out that the action was commanded by the Military Police, without a repossession order.
“The massacre started at 5am and ended at 6pm. It was a whole day with no way for the community to breathe," he recalled.
“We of the Guarani Kaiowá people will not remain silent until all our territories are demarcated. We are willing to go to the maximum level of our resistance”, he added.
"We will resist until the end", says a message on a hearse carrying a victim of the Guapoy massacre / Disclosure/Aty Guasu
The Kaiowá leadership points out that a challenge for the current progressive government of Lula (Workers' Party) is that the violence recorded in the current publication is not repeated in the next one. The leadership argues that the change in scenario depends on the demarcation of indigenous lands.
"We are not negotiating our land, we are willing to die, but never to turn the land into a commodity. The land is mother, we are connected to it, land is sacred, it is not to be sold, the place of happiness and not of violence", he pointed out.
Cimi also found that the three states that accumulate the highest rates of indigenous murders are also the champions in the number of suicides. Between 2019 and 2022, there were a total of 535 deaths of indigenous people by suicide, 74% of them in the states of Amazonas, Mato Grosso do Sul and Roraima.
Edited by: Leandro Melito e Nadini Lopes
