Blocked road along the Brazil-Guyana border. Photo provided by our source
A three-week-long sit-in protest in the town of Bonfim — a small municipality in Brazil’s northernmost state of Roraima — is causing a crisis with neighboring country Guyana. Demonstrators demand the reopening of borders for Brazilian tourists and merchants. Since the pandemic began, only cargo trucks have been able to enter the Guyanese city of Lethem, currently closed off by protestors.
The blockade is directly affecting Lethem’s supply of provisions.
According to Brazilian customs authorities, around 200 trucks cross the border at Bonfim every month, transporting food, footwear, auto parts, and construction materials into Guyana. Due to Covid restrictions imposed by the central government in Georgetown, none of the 12,000 residents of Bonfim are allowed to cross the Takutu River and enter Lethem.
“We have serious trouble at the border. There are already shortages in Lethem,” one Brazilian government official tells The Brazilian Report. Prices of essential goods rose 100 percent due to the blockade, according to local reports.
“People are illegally crossing the Takutu River in the dead of night, 700 meters...
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