This past weekend, Brazil’s President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva visited the vast Yanomami indigenous territory on the country’s northern border with Venezuela, bearing witness to what some have called a humanitarian catastrophe and others have called genocide.
Malnutrition and disease have brought some Yanomami communities to the brink of extinction, and shocking images from inside the villages have alerted the world to the gravity of what is happening in the Brazilian Amazon.
The images show emaciated children, adults, and elderly people with limbs as thin as tree branches, faces drawn and haggard, and bellies distended. The government has declared a public health emergency in the Yanomami indigenous territory and is sending supplies and personnel to the region.
According to Brazil’s indigenous health secretary, more than 1,000 Yanomami have been evacuated from their villages to receive critical health care.
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