Brazil: opening of an investigation for "genocide" against the Yanomami populations
Demonstrators demand justice for the Yanomami people in Brasilia on May 6, 2022. AP - Eraldo Peres
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The Brazilian Minister of Justice announced this Tuesday, January 24 the opening of an investigation for “genocide” after the publication of official data reporting the death in 2022 of a hundred children under five years old in the yanomami indigenous territory.
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“
I decided yesterday to open a new police investigation into a possible genocide
” in this Yanomami territory, Minister Flavio Dino told CNN Brazil.
“
We consider that there are very strong indications of a denial of food and health assistance to these indigenous populations
,” he added.
The investigation, which targets public officials and health sector officials in the indigenous territory, will also focus on allegations of environmental crimes and misappropriation of public resources.
The government of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has sacked 43 soldiers from Funai (National Foundation of Indigenous Peoples), who were appointed during the administration of Jair Bolsonaro and are suspected of not having protected the rights of indigenous peoples.
National organizations, in particular the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, claim that the crime of genocide against indigenous peoples is a deliberate policy of the government of former President Jair Bolsonaro to destroy the indigenous peoples of Brazil.
In recent days, a series of very serious photos and information have been made public about the circumstances of the death and the diseases that claimed the Yanomami people.
This information has already been forwarded to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court.
And from what we know, the prosecutor is evaluating the merits of trying this case in an international jurisdiction, particularly given the fact that there have been no investigations here in Brazil that have taken into consideration the scale of the crimes,
Eloisa Machado, lawyer for the APIB association at the ICC
Jelena Tomic
The Ministry of Health announced last week the death in this isolated territory in the middle of the virgin forest in 2022 of 99 children under the age of five.
Among the causes of death, pneumonia, diarrhea and gastroenteritis, probably of infectious origin, as well as haemorrhage or severe malnutrition.
Lula "
shaken
" by what he saw
Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, invested on January 1, went to Boa Vista, in the state of Roraima, in the north of the country, where part of the Yanomami territory is located on Saturday.
“
What I saw shook me
,” he said, referring to “
inhuman
” scenes when reporting on his visit.
Some 30,400 indigenous people live in Yanomami lands, straddling Roraima and Amazonas states, but also in parts of neighboring Venezuela.
The populations of these lands, supposed to be inviolable and where all mining is prohibited, are struggling to feed themselves due to the destruction of the rainforest where they normally find their means of subsistence.
According to Yanomami chiefs, some 20,000 illegal gold diggers have invaded their territory, killing natives, sexually abusing women and teenage girls and contaminating their rivers with the mercury that separates gold from sediment.
(
With
AFP)
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Brazil
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva