“The water is sick”: Yanomami denounce river contamination
“The water is sick everywhere across the land.” Those were the words used by indigenous leader Júnior Hekurari Yanomami to describe just one of the aspects of his people’s predicament: the lack of drinking water in western Roraima and northern Amazonas, in North Brazil.Júnior Yanomami—who is also chair of the Yanomami and Yek’uana Indigenous Health District Council—explained that the water bodies in Yanomami lands are contaminated by heavy metals used in illegal gold extraction. Scarce water, he noted, is a serious problem facing the indigenous people at this time.“Water is vital for the life in the communities. And there’s no water, as we see. It’s all contaminated. There’s only mud. We’ve been talking about food provisions, but we also need a water supply system for the communities,”...