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Brazil: Lula Declares Public Health Emergency for Yanomami, Accuses Bolsonaro of “Genocide”

HeadlineJan 30, 2023

Brazil’s government has declared a public health emergency in the Yanomami community as severe malnutrition and illness ravage the nation’s largest Indigenous territory, home to some 30,000 people in the Amazon. The crisis is largely due to the disastrous effects of illegal gold mining, which have displaced people, devastated the land and contaminated rivers with mercury. Current President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and other officials have accused former President Jair Bolsonaro of committing “genocide” by propping up miners and neglecting calls to help the Yanomami. This is a Yanomami leader.

Junior Yanomami: “The Yanomami people, for four years, we have only been crying, the community mourning, sick children. And for many times we asked for help, and it didn’t come.”

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