A round of applause ended, at least for now, a drama that had been unfolding for several weeks at the largest airport in Brazil and South America. Dozens of Afghan families sleeping on the mezzanine floor of Terminal 2 at Guarulhos International Airport applauded when they received the news that they were going to a shelter on Friday afternoon (16).
They are refugees who fled the country dominated by the Taliban and who, prevented from traveling to virtually any country in the world, saw a way out in Brazil, due to a humanitarian visa created by the government for people of this nationality. After months of waiting for the bureaucratic process in Pakistan or Iran — the two closest countries with a Brazilian embassy — many have exhausted their resources and arrived without being able to afford a place to stay.
THE Sheet has been following the Afghan camp since April, when the first families began to settle there. Some of them were sheltered by civil society organizations, but new flights arrive every day, and the number has grown to 98 this Friday.
Among those who slept in the makeshift tents with sheets and blankets, there was a 9-month pregnant woman and many children, some of them babies. Many had not showered for more than a week, as access to the airport shower costs R$60.
The news that immigrants from such a critical context were living in this precarious way spread, and the repercussion in the press and on social networks ended up leading to action by the authorities.
This week, meetings were held between the Federal Public Ministry and public agencies and civil society, and a joint effort led to the opening of 100 vacancies in a city hall hotel in Penha, east of the city. There, they will receive assistance from the Immigrant Integration and Citizenship Center, a state agency. In addition, the UNHCR (UN commissioner for refugees) announced that it will finance, by the end of the year, 40 places in a shelter in the city of Poá, SP.
Until now, they had been helped by volunteers, who brought toys, clothes and blankets. The most present was activist Swany Zenobini, who since August 19 has slept several nights at the airport and made noise on social media, exposing the situation. During that time, she collected donations, took pregnant women for prenatal care and got medical care for an Afghan woman who had a bleeding condition. “I’ll keep following it. People will still arrive today,” she said.
A specialist in the area of migration, federal public defender João Chaves, was also at the airport this Friday. “In many years working with this theme, I have rarely seen a situation of such vulnerability”, he said. Chaves received reports that there were scammers going to the place to offer document regularization, which is free, for up to R$ 1,000. He points out that refugees in this situation are at risk of being lured into slave labor and human trafficking.
For the defender, the solution found this Friday is positive, but it needs to be lasting, as more refugees will arrive in the coming months.
Due to distance, cultural differences and the limitation imposed by the need for a visa, the number of Afghan refugees is relatively small for a country the size of Brazil — 6,138 visas have been granted so far, but the Itamaraty says that only a minority come without previous support. of NGOs. There is a lack of reception spaces, however, for those who arrive without references.
“They are large families and we don’t have many options for shelters for this profile. They are all full”, says Father Marcelo Maróstica, director of Cáritas Arquidiocesana de São Paulo, who has followed this flow since the beginning.
Sources heard by Sheet said that the ideal would be greater coordination with the federal government, especially the Ministry of Citizenship, which already has experience with Operação Acolhida — a program to welcome Venezuelan refugees.
Sought after, the ministry said that it has representatives in contact with the state and municipality on the subject and that a transfer of funds for the reception of Afghans is in progress. “Immigrants’ access to social assistance programs is guaranteed in the Brazilian legal system”, says the note.
The Guarulhos City Hall stated that it has been welcoming Afghan families for the first time, distributing lunchboxes and hygiene kits and requesting shelter vacancies daily for the state government. He also said that he opened a transitional shelter for refugees in August – with a capacity for 27 people, the place is full.
A newcomer with two trolleys full of suitcases, Shabana Ahmadi, 28, tried to explain earlier, in the few words of English she knows, that she needed a place to heat her seven-month-old daughter’s food. With the baby in their arms and another four-year-old son by their side, she and her husband, a former journalist for an Afghan TV, were trying to get used to the idea that they would have to sleep at the airport.
In the middle of the afternoon, when they learned that they were going to the hotel, the couple’s worried faces were replaced by smiles of relief. “We got lucky,” they said. “I hope it all works out.”
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