Over 500 Brazilian Indians from 114 ethnic groups will use National Indian Day, commemorated today to press the Brazilian federal government and the National Congress to improve public health care in Indian villages.
The Indians will stage a protest today in Brasília and will meet with the Parliamentary Indianist Front in the National Congress.
70 chiefs will gather with President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva to submit a list of demands in which Indian health care takes priority.
The deaths of 21 Indian children as a result of malnutrition in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul, especially in the municipality of Dourados, caused Indians all over Brazil to react in fear that this problem will affect other villages.
“We have mortality today that exists not only among children, but adults as well, in many villages. Physicians and remedies are in short supply. This is not good for us,” affirms Ngôtyk Kaiapó, who lives in a village in the southern part of the state of Pará.
ABr