Coronavirus devastates indigenous tribes in the Brazilian Amazon

[Judi Lynn]

By Yasemin Saplakoglu - Staff Writer 24 minutes ago

At least 46% of the Arara people on the Cachoeira Seca territory are infected.



The coronavirus is ravaging indigenous communities in the Brazilian Amazon. (Pictured here is a Laranjal tribal camp along the Iriri river in the Arara indigenous land.)
(Image: © MAURO PIMENTEL/AFP via Getty Images)


The coronavirus is ravaging indigenous tribes living in the Amazon rainforest as it sweeps across Brazil.

Brazil has the second-largest outbreak in the world and has reported nearly 1 million cases of COVID-19 and more than 47,700 related deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins virus dashboard. But while the mortality rate is about 6.4% among the Brazilian population, that number rises to 12.6% among indigenous populations, according to CNN.

By the end of May, there were more than 980 coronavirus cases and 125 COVID-19 related deaths in Brazil's indigenous populations, according to numbers from the advocacy group Articulation of the Indigenous Peoples of Brazil, CNN reported.

One tribe, the Arara people of the Cachoeira Seca territory, have been particularly hard-hit, with 46% of its 121 people living in the reserve infected, according to Survival International, an organization that advocates for and defends indigenous rights.

. . .

These indigenous groups, made up of roughly 900,000 people, have lived in the rainforest for thousands of years. But Brazil's President Jair Bolsonaro has said that indigenous people's lands and cultural rights should be taken away, and they should be integrated into society, according to a previous BBC report.

https://www.livescience.com/tribe-brazil-most-infected-coronavirus.html?utm_source=notification

[dhill926]

1. tragic and indefensible...