The search for a 12-year-old Yanomami teenager and a 4-year-old child from the Aracaçá community, in the Waikás region, on the Yanomami indigenous land, should begin on Thursday morning (28), according to the Federal Police Superintendence. in Roraima.
The action will be carried out after a complaint made by the president of Condisi-YY (District Council for Yanomami and Ye’kwana Indigenous Health), Júnior Hekurari Yanomami.
In a video posted on social media on Monday night (25), he claims that the 12-year-old was raped and killed and the 4-year-old fell from a boat after being apprehended by illegal miners and invaders of the territory.
According to the press office of the PF, the displacement to the region should take place until the morning of this Thursday. In Boa Vista, sources heard by the report allege that the bad weather was responsible for the fact that public bodies did not travel earlier to investigate the complaint.
The Federal Public Ministry of Roraima says it is investigating the case. In a note, the agency states that “situations like this” are a consequence “increasingly frequent of illegal mining on indigenous lands in Roraima”.
In the published video, Júnior Yanomami stated that the information was passed on to him by indigenous people from the Aracaçá community. “The miners raped, raped her [a adolescente] and caused the death,” he said. “The teenager’s body is in the community.”
In the publication, he also asked for the help of the authorities. “I inform the authorities, the Federal Police, the Federal Public Ministry and the Army, go to the community. And tomorrow I will also go to the community to look for the body of a woman, a teenager that the miners caused the death by violence”, Júnior Yanomami said in the video.
The press office of the Hutukara Associação Yanomami said that Júnior traveled to the community this Wednesday.
Funai (Fundação Nacional do Índio) said that it is monitoring the case through its decentralized unit in the region, “in conjunction with the security forces” and that “it is available to collaborate with the work to protect the community”.
On April 12, the Hutukara Associação Yanomami published the report “Yanomami Under Attack: Illegal Mining in the Yanomami Indigenous Land and Proposals to Combat It”.
In it, it states that illegal mining increased 46% in 2021 when compared to 2020 data. The report also highlights that, between 2016 and 2020, mining grew by 3,350% in the Yanomami indigenous land.
Also according to the report, the illegal extraction of gold and cassiterite in the indigenous land caused an explosion in cases of malaria, contamination of rivers where indigenous people consume water and fish by mercury and other infectious diseases.
The report also points out that garimpeiros would be sexually abusing women and girls after getting people from the harassed communities drunk. Harassment, according to the report, involves exchanging food with indigenous people.
The Yanomami indigenous land is the largest demarcated territory in the country and, according to ISA (Instituto Socioambiental), is home to 26,780 indigenous people, including isolated peoples.
The indigenous land completes 30 years of demarcation on May 25th. Last year, two uncontacted indigenous people were shot to death in the territory by invaders.
In 2019, a report made by Unicef (United Nations Children’s Fund) in partnership with Fiocruz and the Ministry of Health pointed out that 81.2% of children under five years old surveyed in the region had short stature for their age (chronic malnutrition). ), 48.5% were underweight for their age (acute malnutrition) and 67.8% were anemic.
