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Brazil police open investigation of Indigenous ‘genocide’

Foto: Actualidad RT

January 24 | By AFP |

Brazilian federal police are investigating a “genocide” against the Yanomami people after it emerged that nearly a hundred children from the Indigenous group had died, the Justice Ministry said Tuesday.

The announcement came after a government report revealed Saturday that 99 Yanomami children living on Brazil’s largest Indigenous reservation — all under the age of five — died last year from malnutrition, pneumonia and malaria. 

“I decided yesterday to open a new police investigation to find out (if there has been) a genocide,” Justice Minister Flavio Dino told CNN Brasil. 

“We are considering that there are very strong indications of neglecting nutritional and health assistance for these Indigenous populations, there was intention,” he added. 

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The probe will consider the actions — and failures to act — by authorities and public health officials on Yanomami land, including possible environmental crimes. 

Authorities also found several more cases of children with serious malnutrition, malaria, respiratory infections and other health complications during a visit last week, the ministry said. 

Newly inaugurated President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva described an “inhumane” scene after himself visiting the community in the northern Amazonian state of Roraima.

According to Dino, the aid infrastructure for the Yanomami is “very precarious.” 

Yanomami territory, home to more than 30,000 Indigenous people, stretches 37,000 square miles (96,000 square kilometers) between Roraima and Amazonas states. 

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Lula’s government has set up a department to address the community’s concerns, in a pivot from far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, who maintained a hostile relationship with Brazil’s Indigenous peoples. 

Before the genocide investigation announcement, a health crisis had already been declared in the are. 

Conditions on the Yanomami reservation have become increasingly violent, with illegal miners regularly killing Indigenous residents, sexually abusing women and children and contaminating the area’s rivers with the mercury used to separate gold from sediment, according to complaints from Indigenous organizations. 

And the increase of illegal mining in the Amazon has driven the spread of diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and Covid-19, according to experts. 

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International

One Dead, Three Injured in Shooting at Cree Nation in Saskatchewan

One person was killed and three others were injured in a shooting reported early Tuesday in the Big Island Lake Cree Nation, in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, according to local media.

Police said they were alerted to the incident in a remote area located approximately 392 kilometers northwest of the city of Saskatoon. Authorities issued a dangerous persons alert for two suspects, who were described as armed.

Saskatchewan police urged residents to seek shelter immediately, lock their doors, and avoid the area while the situation remains under investigation. Officers are working to determine whether the shooting was a targeted attack or a random act of violence.

As a precautionary measure, seven health-care facilities in the surrounding area were placed under lockdown, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said in a post on X.

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International

Mexico’s President Visits Victims After Train Derailment Kills 13 in Oaxaca

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum visited on Monday the victims injured in a train accident that left 13 people dead in the southern state of Oaxaca and announced financial assistance for those affected by the derailment of the Interoceanic Train, which was inaugurated in 2023.

The train, carrying 241 passengers and nine crew members, derailed on Sunday while traveling along the Interoceanic Corridor, a major infrastructure project that connects the Pacific coast with the Gulf of Mexico across the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The corridor was one of the flagship initiatives of former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s administration (2018–2024).

Sheinbaum visited three hospitals in the neighboring towns of Tehuantepec and Salina Cruz, where around 20 injured passengers remain hospitalized. She also went to a funeral home to accompany the families of those who lost their lives in the accident.

According to Mexico’s Navy Secretary, Raymundo Morales, the accident occurred when one of the locomotives derailed, causing all four railcars to leave the tracks.

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International

Six killed, including baby, in armed attack near tourist beach in Ecuador

Six people, including a baby girl about two years old, were killed on Sunday in an armed attack near a tourist beach in southwestern Ecuador, police said. The shooting, carried out with rifles, also left three people wounded.

The incident took place in the coastal town of Puerto López, in the province of Manabí, a popular tourist destination known for whale watching. The attack occurred amid a surge of violence over the weekend that left at least nine people dead nationwide, according to local media reports.

“There are six fatalities and three injured,” Colonel William Acurio, the local police commander, told reporters on Sunday. He confirmed that one of the victims was a baby “approximately two years old.”

Authorities have not released further details about the motive behind the attack or whether arrests have been made.

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