Indigenous communities report hunger, lack of water and destruction after heavy rains in Bahia

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Indigenous leaders reported a scenario of destruction in communities in southern and western Bahia after heavy rains that have left 20 people dead and at least 30,000 homeless.

The coordinator of the United Movement of Indigenous Peoples and Organizations of the State of Bahia (MUPOIBA) Agnaldo Pataxó Hã Hã Hãe, estimates that at least 9,000 indigenous people have been affected by the rains, equivalent to 15% of the 60,000 living in the state.

“There are villages completely flooded, roads blocked preventing the communities from accessing the cities, several who lost all their crops. There is no drinking water. The situation is very difficult,” said Agnaldo Pataxó Hã Hã Hãe.

The storm, classified by governor Rui Costa as the greatest natural disaster in Bahia’s history, significantly affected three peoples who live in the far south of the state: the Pataxó, the Tupinambá and the Pataxó Hã Hã Hãe.

MUPOIBA demands that the state government help the traditional peoples more expeditiously. The group has been articulating donations of hygiene supplies, food, and drinking water to people still isolated and to those who have lost their crops due to the heavy rains. According to the group, 10 indigenous people are currently awaiting air rescue in the town of Pau Brasil.

“Bridges are under water, others have collapsed. All we can do is campaign for food, because there are people going cold with water in their homes,” said Nataly, an indigenous woman from the Tupinambá de Olivença people.

The rains in the first half of December had already significantly affected the indigenous peoples of southern Bahia. The MUPOIBA sent a letter to Governor Rui Costa on December 16, reporting that hundreds of families were in a “state of calamity and social vulnerability, particularly food insecurity. These families are isolated and cut off in their villages by the flooding of rivers and destruction of bridges and access roads to the communities,” reads an excerpt of the letter.

Governor Rui Costa said on Monday, December 27, that the government’s initial priority was to attend to those at risk. “The disaster is of such proportions that we sought to help those at risk. Now we are focusing on the isolated people. It seems that Bahia was chosen to be the scenery for those movies about the destruction of the Earth,” he said.

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