“Each day to hell we descend one step, without horror, through stinking darkness” (Charles Baudelaire, The evil flowers). This quote from Baudelaire is very significant of the horror experienced by the Yanomami people. The figures speak for themselves: 540 children under the age of 5 died during the administration of former President Jair Bolsonaro (2018-2022).
The images broadcast these days by the Brazilian and international press, and the testimonies collected by President Lula during his trip to the State of Roraima, show that we are facing a real human tragedy.
It is inconceivable to see children and old people of the Yanomami people in a situation of starvation and abandonment. This constitutes the most obvious demonstration that it is neither more nor less than a premeditated genocide. Jair Bolsonaro knowingly ignored the official requests for help that the Yanomami people sent to the various institutions of the federal state: Funai, federal police, public ministries, etc. Emergency measures were taken by Lula’s government.
The Hutukara, an organization created by the indigenous peoples themselves, has sent several official letters to public bodies over the past two years about the bloody conflicts that could culminate in the genocide of the Yanomami.
She also published three public notes on the attack on an ecological station of the Chico-Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio), the death of two children by a mining dredge and the precarious situation of the “maloca”. (community habitat) of Aracaça.
Attacked by miners
In these documents, indigenous leaders comment on the atrocities they face almost daily. Gold panners cross the rivers threatening and shooting at the Yanomami. Isolated groups were attacked by artisanal gold miners. Health posts were closed due to these intense conflicts and the airstrips became an area for transporting gold and illegal miners. In the absence of doctors and because of the proximity of the miners, malaria spread among the Yanomami. They find themselves locked up, isolated in their territories, at the mercy of the miners.
We, the signatories of this forum, ask:
– the establishment as soon as possible of an international observation commission made up of jurists, elected representatives of the European Parliament and specialists in order to visit the territory of the Yanomami people in the State of Roraima and write a report;
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