indigenous children illustrations picketed into the ground, seen at night

Disaster looms for indigenous Amazon tribes as COVID-19 cases multiply

Indigenous communities in Brazil suffer from the virus on one hand and "genocidal" interlopers on the other, rights groups say.

An art installation in Brasilia commemorates indigenous peoples murdered in Brazil in 2019. The display coincided with an annual protest in the Brazilian capital that draws indigenous people from across the country to advocate for protections for their lands and rights.

Photograph by Alessandro Falco

With the coronavirus spreading into remote territories across the Brazilian Amazon, indigenous leaders and rights officials are pleading with the government to adopt urgent measures to head off a catastrophe.

According to figures compiled by the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (APIB), the country’s principal indigenous federation, deaths from COVID-19 in indigenous communities have risen from 46 on May 1 to 262 on June 9. Together with numbers tallied by state health departments around the country, APIB’s statistics show that 9.1 percent of indigenous people who contract the disease are dying, nearly double the 5.2 percent rate among the general Brazilian population.

The growing number of cases and the government’s sluggish response have prompted allegations of incompetence and disarray

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