Brazil declares emergency over deaths of Yanomami children from malnutrition

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva looks on as he visits the Yanomami Indigenous Health House (CASA Yanomami) in Boa Vista, Roraima state, Brazil January 21, 2023. (REUTERS)
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Updated 23 January 2023
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Brazil declares emergency over deaths of Yanomami children from malnutrition

  • Lula said the new government will put an end to illegal gold mining as it moves to crack down on illegal deforestation in the Amazon, which surged to a 15-year high under Bolsonaro

BRASILIA: Brazil’s ministry of health has declared a medical emergency in the Yanomami territory, the country’s largest indigenous reservation bordering Venezuela, following reports of children dying of malnutrition and other diseases caused by illegal gold mining.
A decree published on Friday by the incoming government of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said the aim of the declaration was to restore health services to the Yanomami people that had been dismantled by his far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro.
In four years of Bolsonaro’s presidency, 570 Yanomami children died of curable diseases, mainly malnutrition but also malaria, diarrhea and malformations caused by mercury used by wildcat gold miners, the Amazon journalism platform Sumauma reported, citing data obtained by a FOIA.
Lula visited a Yanomami health center in Boa Vista in Roraima state on Saturday following the publication of photos showing children and elderly men and women so thin their ribs were visible.
“More than a humanitarian crisis, what I saw in Roraima was genocide: a premeditated crime against the Yanomami, committed by a government insensitive to suffering,” Lula said on Twitter.
The government announced food packages that will be flown to the reservation where some 26,000 Yanomamis live in a region of rainforest and tropical savanna the size of Portugal.
The reservation has been invaded by illegal gold miners for decades, but the incursions multiplied since Bolsonaro won office in 2018 promising to allow mining on previously protected lands and offering to legalize wildcat mining.
There are also signs that organized crime has become involved. In recent violent incidents, men on speed boats on the rivers have shot with automatic weapons at indigenous villages whose communities oppose the entry of gold miners.
Some gold miners have begun to leave, fearing enforcement operations by the Lula government, and appear to be heading across the border into neighboring Guyana and Suriname, said Estevao Senra, a researcher at Instituto Socioambiental, an NGO that defends indigenous rights.
Lula said the new government will put an end to illegal gold mining as it moves to crack down on illegal deforestation in the Amazon, which surged to a 15-year high under Bolsonaro.
“We must hold the previous government accountable for allowing this situation to get worse to the point where we find adults weighing like children, and children reduced to skin and bones,” said Sonia Guajajara, the first indigenous woman to be a cabinet minister, heading a new Ministry of Indigenous Affairs.

 


Russia hits Ukraine with drones, missiles, kills at least 10 in Kharkiv

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Russia hits Ukraine with drones, missiles, kills at least 10 in Kharkiv

  • Zelensky said that Russia launched 480 drones and 29 missiles targeting the energy sector and railway infrastructure
  • “There should be a response from partners to these savage strikes against life“

KHARKIV, Ukraine: Russia launched a barrage of drones and missiles at Ukraine overnight on Saturday, damaging infrastructure and killing at least 10 people, including two children, in the northeast city of Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia launched 480 drones and 29 missiles targeting the energy sector and railway infrastructure across the country.
“There should be a response from partners to these savage strikes against life,” Zelensky said on the Telegram app.
“Russia has not abandoned its attempts to destroy Ukraine’s residential and critical infrastructure, ⁠and therefore support should ⁠continue,” Zelensky said, urging partners to continue air defense and weapons supplies.
Ukrainian air defense units shot down 453 drones and 19 missiles, the air force said. But nine missiles and 26 attack drones hit 22 sites, it said.

BALLISTIC MISSILE SLAMS INTO RESIDENTIAL BUILDING
The city of Kharkiv was targeted by both Russian drones and missiles, and 10 people, including two children, were killed after ⁠a Russian ballistic missile slammed into a five-story residential building, Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
“When we arrived here 20 minutes after the explosion, I thought I was going to have a stroke. I couldn’t string two words together, and my legs were buckling,” Hanna, a resident of the destroyed building, told Reuters.
“It’s good that I wasn’t there with my child and that my father was with me. It was ordinary people who lived there. What were they targeting?“
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces carried out massive overnight strikes on Ukrainian military-industrial complexes, military airfields and energy facilities, the Interfax news agency reported.
In ⁠Kharkiv, 15 ⁠people were also wounded, and 19 residential buildings were damaged by the Russian attacks, Syniehubov said.
Commercial and administrative buildings, electricity distribution lines, and cars were also hit, he said.
In Kyiv, three people were injured, and the heating was knocked out in 2,806 residential apartment buildings in four districts across the capital after Russian strikes hit an energy infrastructure facility, Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said.
National grid operator Ukrenergo said that emergency power cuts were introduced in seven regions following the Russian attacks.
Ukrainian officials said that Russia also attacked four railway stations and other railway infrastructure in central Ukraine and port infrastructure in the southern Odesa region, setting on fire containers with vegetable oil and damaging a grain warehouse.