‘I couldn’t go to my sister’s funeral’, says elderly woman affected by road blocks

The wake of Gessi Tigre, 77 years old, took place in Curitibanos, in the state of Santa Catarina, yesterday afternoon. Despite the desire to be present, her sister Ceci, 68, resident of Indaial, about 180 kilometers away, was unable to arrive because of road blocks caused by protests by Bolsonaristas.

In the case of Ceci and her granddaughter Djeniffer da Silva, who wanted to take her grandmother to say goodbye to her sister, it was not directly the traffic that prevented them from arriving, but the scarcity of fuel at the city’s gas stations, since the loads were stuck in the roads.

“There were long lines at gas stations and reports of fuel shortages in some places, since with the shortage, many ran to fill their tanks. We didn’t have enough time to get gas and make the three-hour trip”, he says. Djeniffer.

Ceci sent a brief audio to the report. “I have no words for this situation, I couldn’t make it to my sister’s funeral and I’m not well,” she said, asking her granddaughter to report for her what happened.

Djeniffer says that the grandmother has lost another sister and a brother, which makes the grieving of not saying goodbye to the last sister who was alive more difficult.

“My grandmother took care of her sisters, Delo and Gessi, since they were little, it was always the three of them together. After Aunt Delo’s death, my grandmother got sick, and Gessi, who suffered from a mental condition, went to an asylum. My grandmother went to see her a few times, whenever she could, and she always talked about how she wanted to get her out of there,” says her granddaughter.

The family, according to Djeniffer, is divided in opinions about the protests in which supporters of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), defeated at the polls on Sunday (30), refuse to accept the result and, in many cases, ask that the Armed Forces carry out a coup d’état.

Personally, she says she doesn’t support it, and says she thinks it’s unfair that people have also missed health-related commitments, such as doctor appointments and treatment sessions.

“We also talk a lot about the economic damage that the protests bring, but there is this psychological and emotional damage, as in my grandmother’s case, caused by losing a moment that never comes back. And my grandmother’s is just one of the stories, but how many others didn’t?”, asks Djeniffer.

“My personal opinion is that the protests encourage our current president to resist passing the government and transforming our democracy into a dictatorship. If that happened, it would do irreparable damage to our history – people could lose their rights.”

This text was originally published here.

According to the PRF (Federal Highway Police), the fines imposed due to the roadblocks are already almost 2,000 and exceed R$ 18 million.