Indigenous mothers in Brazil mourning their children's deaths seek closure
For more than a month, four mothers of the Sanöma tribe were looking for the bodies of their children in the Roraima state capital. Officials eventually said they'd been buried under suspicion of having COVID-19, according to protocol — but the mothers said they weren't notified.
July 10, 2020 · 4:45 PM EDT
By Michael Fox
Two young mothers stand with a group of fellow Indigenous Brazilians in a park in Boa Vista in northern Brazil.
One of them, speaking in her native Sanöma language, tells the president of the local health council serving the region’s Yanomami Indigenous people that she’s distraught and needs his help. She tells him she can’t go back home without the body of her dead son.
“I came here with my baby, and I need you to help me take him home,” she said through an interpreter, crying.
The mothers’ pleading in late June was captured on video, which has been shared on social media. For more than a month, four mothers of the Sanöma tribe, a subgroup of the Yanomami people, had been looking for their children's bodies in the Roraima state capital. Today, the women are still waiting for resolution — and several of them have contracted the coronavirus.
More:
https://www.pri.org/stories/2020-07-10/indigenous-mothers-brazil-mourning-their-childrens-deaths-seek-closure
