Indigenous tribes revert to total isolation ‘for survival’

INDIGENOUS groups across Latin America are isolating themselves from the outside world, fearful that coronavirus poses a threat to their existence.

Volunteers from indigenous groups now face the unprecedented challenge of thwarting a global pandemic.

Among them is José Obeymar Tenorio, who belongs to Colombia’s Indigenous Guard, a two thousand-strong force that protects the Nasa reservation in the south-western Cauca region.

Guards patrol 24 hours a day at hundreds of checkpoints in Cauca. The movement of people is restricted and only essential deliveries can pass. “It’s our job to keep this virus out,” says Mr Obeymar. “This is about our survival.”

In Argentina, the Mapuche tribe has set up roadblocks, and in Brazil, the Xingu peoples refusing entry to anyone other than medics. Similar measures have been reported in Guatemala, Chile, Mexico and Nicaragua.

Latin America is home to 42million

‘History tells us we are vulnerable and we have to save ourselves. Nobody else will help us’

indigenous people, according to the World Bank. The United Nations says they are particularly vulnerable to infectious diseases, with high levels of poverty and malnutrition.

The first wave of European colonisation in the 18th century introduced diseases such as smallpox, leaving millions dead among the native populations.

“History tells us we are vulnerable,” said Jhoe Sauca from the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca in Colombia. “And we have to save ourselves. Nobody else will help us.”

In Peru, indigenous groups submitted a formal complaint to the UN in late April, saying the government had left them to fend for themselves against the virus, risking “ethnocide by inaction”. And in neighbouring Ecuador, representatives of the Siekopai nation of just 744 people said they feared being wiped out after 15 cases and two deaths.

In the Amazon basin, 180 of the 600 indigenous tribes have reported at least 30 deaths, according to charities.

This week the first cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in Vaupés, the jewel of the Colombian Amazon and home to some 255 indigenous communities.

Indigenous groups from the nine Amazon basin countries are calling for donations to help protect the three million people who live in the rainforest.