The impossible confinement of favelas in Rio de Janeiro

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Children play in the street of a favela in Rio de Janeiro despite the coronavirus crisis, March 22, 2020. REUTERS / Ricardo Moraes

Text by: Sarah Cozzolino Follow

In Brazil, 11 million people live in favelas. While President Jair Bolsonaro minimizes the crisis since the start of the pandemic, and even encourages workers to resume their activity, the epidemic begins to affect these poor neighborhoods which lack health infrastructure. Places where overcrowding makes it almost impossible to follow hygiene and containment recommendations and where solidarity makes it possible to survive.

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The Chapéu Mangueira favela is located on the heights of the legendary Copacabana beach. A small multisport field has been converted into a solidarity center for the inhabitants of the district. In the stands, around twenty volunteers, with masks and gloves, are bent over their pots.

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"Here, we have rice with homemade red beans, spaghetti with tomato sauce, sautéed vegetables ... When there are no more, we will replace them with salad with tomatoes," explains Carlos Oliveira. We also have small hygiene kits, sanitary napkins for women, soap… ”

This chef and former drug addict is in charge this Saturday. With other volunteers, he prepares 500 meals to help the inhabitants of the favela and the homeless who are now wandering on Avenida Atlantica, the seafront deserted in recent weeks.

Ana Cristina Lima is part of the small volunteer team. “There are many people in need. So we are there to support the project… because hunger does not wait, ”says this domestic worker who has not worked for her bosses for a week. However, they continue to pay him his salary, a chance that most informal favela workers do not have. "There are still many who work, because their boss has not released them ... In the favela, the truth is that we do as we can," she said.

Hunger does not wait

Since the epidemic arrived in Brazil, the inhabitants of the favelas have first been impacted economically. Street vendors, who work on the beach or in the streets, find themselves overnight without money to eat.

Jefferson Peles is part of the organization and receives donations from individuals and businesses: “ It's time to balance. If everyone stays at home and no one goes out to fix the problems, many people will be hungry and really have nothing to eat. So I think the risks we take here - with a few precautions like masks and gel - are worth it to be able to help other people. "

Once the meals are ready, they are taken in two cars. Safe deposit boxes open, the team scans the people who need them, in the empty streets of Copacabana. Near a park, a dozen people come running when they understand that they can eat for free. The team tries to discipline them, in a file with a distance of one meter between each person. And before the distribution of the meals, they sprinkle their hands with hydroalcoholic gel and they are given a "hygiene kit". All are grateful.

" You are doing what the government is not doing!" David notes. Because for the moment despite the promises, the informal workers and the poorest families have not yet received financial aid. And hygiene recommendations are difficult to apply in favelas where residents sometimes have no access to water.

President Bolsonaro's positions strongly criticized

Since the start of the crisis, Vânia Ribeiro, president of the association of inhabitants of the Tabajaras favela, has been running in all directions. “We have serious problems because of the lack of water. We are in a constant struggle. Today we spent the day with three tankers to supply areas of the favela that had no water. "

So when this fifty-year-old woman listens to the speeches of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who downplays the coronavirus by calling it a “little flu”, she becomes upset: “ All the awareness work that is being done community leaders, to keep the children at home, to explain that the elderly must not go out, that it is a contagious disease, which kills ... An irresponsible speech by the President of the Republic partially destroys our work. "

In the favela of Tabajaras, she still sees evangelical churches which welcome the faithful ... Religious cults have been considered as essential services by Jair Bolsonaro. I have the feeling that in these difficult times, instead of setting an example and explaining to people that they cannot come together, pastors sharpen the faith of people in despair and take advantage of them. "

Faced with this situation and the inaction of the public authorities, in certain favelas, it is the traffickers who take over and impose a quarantine on the inhabitants. Yone Dutra lives in the complexo do Alemão, a group of 13 favelas, in the northern zone of Rio. She explains: “ At the top of the favela, where the traffickers dominate, they ordered all the inhabitants to stay at home. They instituted a curfew, threatening punishment if it was not respected. And everyone fears punishment from traffickers. "

In these districts where the poorest residents often crowd in two-room apartments for six people, the notification of cases of coronavirus is very complicated and underestimated. But the epidemic risks wreaking havoc in this country where 31 million inhabitants do not have access to running water.

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