Murders of indigenous people, as well as suicides and infant mortality within their communities, increased in Brazil between 2022 and 2023, according to a study published on Monday, July 22. In its annual report, the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI), linked to the Catholic Church, reports a general deterioration of the situation.
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In total, 208 indigenous people were murdered in Brazil in 2023, i.e. 15.5% more than in 2022 (180) according to the study by Missionary Indigenous CouncilThe authors, who attribute some of them to groups linked to agribusiness, indicate that most of these murders were carried out with firearms, often after threats.
The study also criticizes the insufficient prosecution of invasions of territories inhabited by indigenous people in 2023, the first year of the left-wing president’s second term. Luiz Inacio Lula da SilvaShe also deplores the slow progress in demarcating land belonging to indigenous people, ” blocked ” under the far-right government of Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022) called ” openly anti-indigenous “. In September 2023, the Supreme Court of Brazilin a historic judgment, had strengthened the rights of Amerindians to their lands, but since Lula da Silva’s return to power, an insufficient number of reserves have been created according to the indigenous peoples who mobilized last April to demand respect for their rights to their ancestral lands.
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Humanitarian crisis declared in 2023
Furthermore, the report indicates 180 suicides in these communities in 2023, compared to 115 in 2022 (+56%).
The lack of medical care led to the deaths of 111 indigenous people in total last year, the study also states, compared to 40 in 2022. It also indicates that 1,040 children under four died in 2023 from influenza, pneumonia, diarrhea or intestinal infections and malnutrition, particularly in the states of Roraima and Amazonas (north), which border Venezuela. The figure is 24.5% higher than in 2022, when it stood at 835 deaths.
In January 2023, the authorities declared a state of “humanitarian crisis” in the region, from which they began to expel thousands of illegal miners, whose activities pollute rivers with mercury and threaten the survival of communities. President Lula accused his predecessor of genocide. But illegal gold mining resumed after the dismantling of military bases in the region by the end of 2023.
Finally, the authors of the study also believe that the lack of sanitation and drinking water has been “aggravated by the climate crisis, which has caused floods in several regions of the country and a severe drought in the Amazon region.”
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