Guajajara admits that Lula government failed to resolve Yanomami crisis

The Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara, admitted this Tuesday (16) that the federal government has failed in its attempt to resolve the crisis involving the Yanomami population. This is the first statement by a member of the Lula government acknowledging the failure of the so-called “Yanomami mission”.

Since January, the federal government has implemented a task force with the aim of reducing lack of assistance in the region inhabited by indigenous people, which covers part of the states of Roraima and Amazonas. For experts, there are chronic problems in the region that have persisted for years and have no simple resolution.

Even so, at the beginning of his term, Lula (PT) linked the high mortality and rates of malnutrition and disease among the Yanomami to an attempt at “genocide” by the previous government, of Jair Bolsonaro, and promised a quick resolution of the crisis.

However, as shown by People’s Gazette, a report from the Secretariat of Indigenous Health (Sesai) of the Ministry of Health published at the beginning of the year showed that Yanomami deaths in 2023 grew by almost 50% compared to the previous year. There were 308 victims compared to 209 in 2022.

According to the report, 104 deaths were just babies under one year of age. Another 58 deaths were children between one and four years of age. In total, deaths of children up to 4 years of age correspond to 52.5% of the total.

“It’s not just saying that it hasn’t been resolved in 2023. In fact, it hasn’t been resolved. And it probably won’t be resolved in 2024, considering the complex situation we have. But we took the territory in this situation. We thought it was just a health crisis, but there was this whole issue of mining involved”, said Sonia Guajajara in a live broadcast carried out together with the Secretary of Indigenous Health of the Ministry of Health, Weibe Tapeba.

The minister stated that the government is currently moving from emergency actions to “permanent monitoring and inspection actions”.

This weekend, Senator Ciro Nogueira (PP-PI), president of the PP, mocked Lula’s strategy of trying to politically capitalize on the Yanomami crisis. “Wasn’t it Bolsonaro’s fault, the ‘genocide’? The deaths of Yanomami in Lula’s first year were at the same level as Bolsonaro’s last. Criticisms? Bolsonaro was the ‘guilty’. Squid? This topic disappeared. But Brazil sees the double standard and at the right time it will speak out”, posted the senator.