COVID-19: an existential threat for Indigenous peoples of the Amazon (7-21-20)

COVID-19: an existential threat for Indigenous peoples of the Amazon

Theodor Borrmann, PreventionWeb

7-21-20

“The guardians of the forests are in danger!”, Tuntiak Katan observes at the beginning of the Covid-19 outbreak. His warning still echoes and reverberates in my head. Over the last three months, the coronavirus has rapidly spread through the Amazon basin. As of July 21st, there were close to 23,000 Covid-19 cases among indigenous peoples of the Amazon, and more than 1,100 fatalities. The pandemic has tragically amplified the structural problems of the region, and is threatening to destroy whole peoples and communities. Danger of ethnocide is real.

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