The Bororo people who live in the Jarudore land, in the municipality of Poxoréu in the state of Mato Grosso, have been worried because invaders of their lands have been threatening to destroy their village and attack children, adults and elderly people. The community expects the National Foundation for Indigenous People (Funai) to comply with its promise to hold a meeting with the Federal Police in the community to try and solve this problem.

 

According to Maria Aparecida Toroekure, chief of the indigenous group, the invaders have been threatening them for 20 days already, but on Monday (January 28) they began to act more aggressively. Twenty of the 28 indigenous people who lived in the indigenous area left after these threats.

 

Aparecida believes that threats like these are made because people believe that they can commit crimes against the Bororo people and get away with it. “They think they can kill a Bororo or set fire to a truck belonging to a Bororo and get away with it,” she stressed. She was referring to the murder of Elenilson Batare in March 2007 and to an incident involving her son-in-law in December 2006.

 

The manager of the Support Center of the National Foundation for Indigenous People (Funai) in the city of Rondonópolis pledged to visit the area yesterday (January 30) with Federal Police (PF) officers. However, this meeting has not been held until today. According to Aparecida, Funai told her that the meeting might be held tomorrow (February 2). She fears that the authorities will not take any measures. “Before they set fire to the truck, we had reported these threats to Funai three times,” she said.

 

The Jarudore land was demarcated in 1945 with 4,070 hectares, but it has been occupied by different invaders. In June 2006, Aparecida and other people from the Bororo community reoccupied part of the indigenous land with the aim of pressuring Funai and the court system to speed up the removal of invaders from it.

 

Since then, they have been threatened and have suffered acts of aggression from some invaders. Aparecida stressed that she does not feel intimidated by this situation: “I will only leave this area after I am dead. This is a legally registered area. We have the right to live here.”

 

Five people of the Bororo community from the Sangradouro village arrived there today (January 31) and will stay for some days with Aparecida and her family to support the indigenous community.

 

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Suffering health problems, the Maxakali people request doctors and sanitation projects

 

Since early January 2008, the 65 families of the Maxakali people who live in the Verde village in the municipality of Ladainha, state of Minas Gerais, have been facing serious health problems due to the lack of sanitation facilities in the area. The community and organizations that support the Maxakali people will request a federal court to come up with solutions, because, among other problems, doctors are needed and there are virtually no sewage systems in the village.

 

These families from the Maxakali people have been living in this area since January 2007, when the National Foundation for Indigenous People (Funai) bought the land to settle the indigenous group in it. There are water springs inside the indigenous area, but they are located up in the hills and there are no rivers flowing through the land to distribute this water. One of the main problems faced by them is their difficult access to water.

 

Most families have no running water near them and the quality of the impounded water they use is not good. At the headquarters of the village, water is pumped from a well by an electric pump (in precarious conditions) to two tanks connected to a hose which should distribute it to the whole village, but this system is not operational so far.

 

In January, almost the entire community became sick. People felt abdominal pains, were vomiting, had fever, were fainting, bleeding through the nose, and were feeling weak, among other symptoms. “At the village, everybody was just lying down, feeling exhausted. Not even the children had enough energy to play,” stressed the missionary Gilce Freire, from Cimi’s team in the region, who visited the indigenous area 10 days ago. According to a note issued by the National Health Foundation (Funasa) today (January 31), the indigenous people were affected by a virosis and they are already receiving medical treatment.

 

On January 16, leaders of the Maxakali people and organizations that support the indigenous community met with the coordinator of the Special Indigenous Sanitary District (DSEI) in the city of Valadares to demand solutions to the situation. They requested the presence of a doctor in the area, because there are only two nurses working there, but they have not received any answer so far.

 

The Maxakali indigenous community from the Verde Village, the Regional Mucuri Small Farmers’ Association, Cimi, and the Federal University of the Jequitinhonha Valley (Teófilo Otoni campus) will report the situation faced by the indigenous people to the Federal Prosecutor’s Office. Besides requesting the presence of a doctor, they have been stressing that Funasa should urgently implement sanitation projects in the area to avoid intestinal diseases and diseases caused by parasites, among other measures.

 

 

Brasília, January 31, 2008.

Cimi – Indianist Missionary Council

       www.cimi.org.br