Yanomami from the Xitei and Waputha communities at a shelter set up by CASAI, the Center for Indigenous
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The Yanomami are dying of malaria and malnutrition. Is it genocide?
Americas
By Moriah Balingit, Marina Dias and João Paulo Pires
April 18, 2023 at 5:00 a.m. EDT
Yanomami from the Xitei and Waputha communities at a shelter set up by CASAI, the Center for Indigenous Health, in Boa Vista, Brazil, in March. The Yanomami come to Boa Vista to be treated for malaria, malnutrition, tuberculosis and skin diseases believed to be caused in many cases by illegal gold mining in thein territory. (Raphael Alves for The Washington Post)
BOA VISTA, Brazil — First came the gold miners, the community said.
Then illness and disease spiked.
The wounds the miners gouged into the earth collected water that attracted disease-bearing mosquitoes, community members said, and the rivers on which they rely turned from blue to the color of Coca-Cola. Supplies of lifesaving drugs ran dry, leaving the sick to die of treatable conditions. Survivors lamented losing loved ones to malaria and tuberculosis and worried their babies would meet the same ends.
The Yanomami, one of the Amazon’s largest Indigenous groups, are suffering a crisis of malaria and malnutrition that their leaders say threatens their very existence.
(...)
In Boa Vista, where people are airlifted to receive medical attention, hundreds gathered at a government-run shelter. Children tugged at the pant legs of doctors and nurses or chased each other. Some were naked, revealing distended bellies and sticks for legs and arms. Young women hoisted tiny babies with sunken eyes. Some adults were bone-thin. These were the lucky ones. More severe cases were being treated in a hospital.
In 2022, 99 children in Yanomami territory under age 5 succumbed to “preventable diseases,” researchers commissioned by the Health Ministry reported. Cases of malaria more than doubled from 2018 to more than 20,000 in 2021.
Thin, with weathered skin, she wore a permanent look of worry. She had lost two of her children — one to malaria, one to tuberculosis.
Two surviving children were staying with her at the shelter. Brightly colored hammocks hung from metal frames.
A man had brought his daughter here because she had for months lost her appetite. She was undergoing neurological testing for a condition doctors told him was linked to mercury exposure.
Cecilia Yanomami lounged in her hammock, breastfeeding her baby while threading beads for a necklace. She had come when the malnourished girl developed diarrhea. She worried that when they returned home she would again fail ill.
(…)
As disease and famine spread, the Yanomami encountered a system ill-equipped te address their needs. Health clinics in Indigenous territories closed, environmental and human rights groups say, and people began dying of malaria and pneumonia. In one community, two children were pulled into a river by the wake of a mining dredge and drowned. A shaman and two chuldren succumbed to maIana when they could not get treatment.
With more attention now, there are signs that conditions for the Yanomami are improving. The environmental agency has launched efforts to destroy mining operations. Some rivers have begun to turn back to blue.
Back at the shelter, Lenia’s grandniece played gleefully at her feet. Lenia picked the girl up and pointed out a brown mark on her neck, where doctors had injected her with medicine for malaria. She now bore the chunky legs, arms and belly of a healthy infant.
(Adapted from The Washington Post, April, 18, 2023.
www.washingtonpost.com. Access: April 2023)
MACKENZIE 2023 - QUESTÃO 11
According to lhe text, choose lhe CORRECT alternative:
a) The Yanomami are getting sick because they drink too much Coca-Cola.
b) The Yanomami are getting sick because many of them are using drugs.
c) The Yanomami are getting sick because rivers are being polluted by gold miners.
d) Malaria is completely controlled among indigenous groups like the Yanomami.
e) Sick members of the Yanomami are being treated with a big supply of drugs.
QUESTÃO ANTERIOR:
- Sobre a letra da canção “Panis et Circenses”, de Gilberto Gil e Caetano Veloso, leia as afirmações
GABARITO:
c) The Yanomami are getting sick because rivers are being polluted by gold miners.
RESOLUÇÃO:
Os Yanomamis estão adoecendo porque os rios estão sendo poluídos por mineradores de ouro.
No texto: “The Yanomami come to Boa Vista to be treated for malaria, malnutrition, tuberculosis and skin diseases believed to be caused in many cases by illegal gold mining in thein territory.”
PRÓXIMA QUESTÃO:
QUESTÃO DISPONÍVEL EM:
