The Yanomami, an indigenous people group located in the Roraima state of Brazil, are the “largest relatively isolated tribe in South America,” according to survivalinternational.org, with 38,000 people inhabiting 9.6 million hectares of land. Since the 1980s, however, illegal gold miners have repeatedly invaded this land so they can take control of the territory’s natural resources, attacking and killing the natives as they do. 

While these miners have been charged with genocide in the past, violence against the Yanomami people increased in 2019 under the presidency of Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro championed mining on indigenous reserves, while, at the same time, gold prices skyrocketed. This combination of events incentivized approximately 20,000 illegal gold miners to invade the Yanomami’s indigenous land, polluting and destroying the natural resources the people need to live and spreading fatal diseases like the flu and malaria. An estimated 570 Yanomami children died from these diseases during Bolsonaro’s term. The miners themselves have murdered 182 indigenous people. The population is becoming increasingly malnourished as their land is depleted of resources. 

A week after the Brazilian government declared a public health emergency for the Yanomami people on Jan. 21, the CNBB issued a statement expressing their “deep solidarity with the Yanomami people, the families who lost their children and adults, and the indigenous leaders.” 

Many local church groups supported the CNBB’s stance, including the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon, the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network, and the Church of Brazil, who reaffirmed their commitment “to denounce attacks on the lives of indigenous communities, projects that affect the environment, the lack of demarcation of their territories, as well as the predatory and ecocidal economic model of development.” 

Currently, the Church is working alongside the government to provide as many financial and humanitarian resources as they can. As of Feb. 1, the CNBB had sent $70,000 to the diocese of Roraima, which will use the funds to supply the Yanomami people with food, clothing, transportation and medicine. 

As more awareness is raised for this crisis, churchgoers all around Brazil have been getting involved. Antonio Eduardo de Oliveira, Secretary General of CNBB’s Indigenous Missionary Council, reported that “there is a growing number of people asking the church to receive their donations to the Yanomami. Brazilian society is deeply mobilized with their problem and is willing to help.” 

The bishops continue to reiterate the utmost importance of defending indigenous peoples’ livelihoods and ensuring this “genocide” will not be historically forgotten. “Life must be effectively defended, not only at a specific stage but throughout its entire course,” the CNBB said. “The pains of each indigenous person are also those of the Church.”