“Today we brought food, tomorrow there won’t be.” The threat was made by a military officer to indigenous Venezuelans of the Warao people who live in a refugee shelter in Boa Vista, according to a chief who reported the case on condition of anonymity.
This and other intimidations made in recent weeks were motivated by indigenous resistance to the decision of Operation Acolhida and UNHCR (UN arm for refugees) to move them from their current shelter to Rondon 3, the largest shelter for refugees and migrants in America. Latin.
According to the sheltered, no one was consulted in advance, a right provided for in Convention 169, an international treaty of the International Labor Organization to which Brazil is a signatory. The deadline for the change is the end of March.
On Wednesday (16), the indigenous people say they were surprised by army officers inside the Pintolândia shelter, where Repórter Brasil has already reported allegations of ill-treatment by the military.
Craft items, sold in the city, were confiscated. The ropes of the hammocks, which act as beds, are cut. A man was attacked, and indigenous people who work with international institutions were threatened with losing their jobs. All in front of the kids.
Those present, says the chief, were warned: the days of the light were also numbered. Anyone who wanted to stay in the shelter would be on their own.
The Warao fear that moving to another shelter will leave them in an even more vulnerable situation and report problems such as insecurity and difficulty in accessing schools.
Organizations that work with Venezuelans in the region classified the army’s action as “truculent” and criticized the authorities involved not only for the lack of consultation with the indigenous people, but also for the absence of decent and fixed housing solutions, as opposed to shelters, which should be temporary.
Sought after, Operação Acolhida and UNHCR sent a joint note, stating that the change of shelter was notified in November 2021, as “irreparable infrastructure problems” were identified. Since then, consultations have been carried out through participatory diagnoses, and that the change is voluntary, say the entities.
The documents, they also say, were delivered to the Public Defender’s Office. As for the complaints of pressure, forced removal, confiscation of handicrafts and the threat of losing their jobs, they say that the Humanitarian Logistics Task Force “is not aware of any complaints” and that “all the sheltered are treated with dignity and respect.”
Regarding school transport, they say that the new shelter is in a region “close to schools” and that UNHCR has raised funds to support the movement of children affected by the transfer.
The chief who denounces the removal of the shelter says he has lived there for more than four years, having fled the misery in Venezuela. For him, shelter should have been something temporary, not for life, but it became the only option. So change, he says, makes him afraid.
The pressure that he and the other 300 indigenous people from Pintolândia have been suffering sounds unlikely for those who live as refugees or migrants and, therefore, should rightly be protected by Operação Acolhida and UNHCR.
Operation Acolhida is a humanitarian task force that brings together the federal government, UN agencies, the Army and other entities. The note from UNHCR and Operação Acolhida says that the “Humanitarian Logistics Task Force manages security, logistics and infrastructure support in all the shelters of Operação Acolhida” and that “UNHCR, in partnership with civil society organizations, through a memorandum of understanding signed with the Ministry of Citizenship, it supports the management of the shelters of Operação Acolhida in Roraima”.
‘Without dignity’
The lawyer and legal advisor of the CIR (Indian Council of Roraima), Ivo Cípio, told Repórter Brasil that the forced removal must be stopped.
“It’s another truculent action of Operation Acolhida with the endorsement of a UN agency”, he says. On social networks, the CIR, which monitors the migratory crisis, also repudiated the action.
“To say that this population has a choice [ir para o Rondon 3] is not true. Because staying on the street is not an option. Alternatives should be constructed based on consultation”, says Yuri Costa, vice president of the CNDH (National Council for Human Rights).
For Costa, it is not possible to say that there was no time to listen to them. “We are no longer talking about that great migratory flow of 2018, but about people in shelters for almost five years. It is not a matter of giving options and free choice, but of imposing a shelter policy as a definitive structure, which is inappropriate and illegal.”
The record of the indigenous people moving, without consent, to a super shelter, with a capacity for up to 3,000 people, is in the CNDH report on human rights violations and the migration crisis in the region, published on March 17, the same week as the military advance in the Pintolândia shelter.
“Reports are alarming about the prevalence of a sense of pressure, fear and misinformation among the indigenous migrant population and the restructuring of shelters,” the document says.
The report also includes the denunciation, made by Repórter Brasil, of the creation of Cantinho da Vergonha, a space of involuntary confinement where Venezuelan indigenous people in alcoholism were detained without a court order.
“Neither UNHCR nor Operação Acolhida presented alternatives. Neither the state of Roraima nor the city of Boa Vista thought of public policies for this population”, says Gilmara Fernandes Ribeiro, coordinator of the project to support Venezuelan populations on the move in Boa Vista in Indigenous Missionary Council.
UNHCR and Operação Acolhida claimed to work together with public bodies so that, together with the sheltered community, a “differentiated strategy” is built. The document, however, does not mention dates, actors involved or what stage the process is in.
The report sought out the governments of Roraima and the city of Boa Vista and questioned them about public policies for the sheltered population, but there was no response until the report was published.
