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Brazil's Indigenous communities face 'rising murders, infant deaths'

Brazil's Indigenous communities face rising violence and infant mortality, with 208 killed and 1,040 children dying last year.

AP Archive

An Indigenous woman attends the 20th annual Free Land Indigenous Camp in Brasilia, Brazil, April 22, 2024. / Photo: AP Archive

The situation in Brazil's Indigenous communities deteriorated last year, said a study that recorded a rise in murders and infant mortality.

In total, 208 Indigenous people were killed in the country last year, 15.5 percent more than in 2022 (180), according to the annual report from the Missionary Council for Indigenous Peoples (CIMI) published on Monday.

The majority of victims were shot dead, often after threats, according to the report, which attributed some of the killings to groups tied to agribusiness.

CIMI, which has links to the Catholic Church, also recorded 1,040 Indigenous children under four years old dying last year.

The fatalities were the result of flu, pneumonia, diarrhea, intestinal infections or malnutrition, particularly in the states of Roraima and Amazonas which border Venezuela.

The toll is 24.5 percent higher than in 2022 when 835 babies and toddlers died, CIMI said.

Authorities have declared a humanitarian crisis in that region and expelled thousands of mineral miners working illegally to tackle an industry that pollutes rivers with mercury and threatens the survival of the local population.

The government has said that the operation is still ongoing.

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CIMI said the lack of sanitation and drinking water was "aggravated by the climate crisis, which caused floods countrywide, and a severe drought in the Amazon region."

The organisation also criticised inadequate controls on invasions of lands where Indigenous people live in 2023, the first year of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's current term in office.

The report lamented slow progress on demarcating Indigenous lands, blocked by the administration of Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022), described as "openly aggressive" toward Indigenous people.

The CIMI study also reported 180 suicides in Indigenous communities last year, a rise of 56 percent compared to 115 recorded in 2022.

A lack of medical care led to the deaths of 111 Indigenous people in 2023, the report said, compared to 40 the previous year.