In front of Praça Germano Sampaio, in the neighborhood of Pintolândia, in Boa Vista, three young people are sitting on the sidewalk. They take advantage of the small shade of a high wall to escape the merciless summer sun, in the capital of Roraima.
The wall surrounds a plot of 15,000 square meters (m²), with a large shed, some makeshift tents, a dirt and gravel floor, a small clay field with crooked wooden beams and some covered structures (such as a community kitchen).
There live six different communities of the Warao ethnic group, who fled Venezuela in 2016 and 2017 in search of better living conditions in Brazil and settled on the ground. Today there are 340 people, many of them children born on Brazilian soil since the group’s migration. According to them, some already have a residence visa in Brazil while others have status of refugees.
Shelter deactivated by Operation Acolhida is still occupied by indigenous Venezuelans of the Warao ethnic group – Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil
Anyone who passes through the iron gate, right at the entrance, sees a water tank with the Unicef logo. Some signs also indicate that, one day, that land was under the tutelage of the Acolhida Operation, an action created in 2018 by the federal government to receive, shelter and resettle Venezuelans in other parts of Brazil, in partnership with United Nations (UN) agencies. ), such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Since March 2022, however, no more agents of Operation Acolhida have been seen there. According to the Warao, they left and deactivated the shelter, called the Shelter of Pintolândia. Acolhida’s coordination reported that, in November 2021, it began to restructure indigenous shelters to meet international humanitarian standards.
According to the coordination, the Pintolândia Shelter was deactivated because it had problems with infrastructure, habitability, water, sanitation, flooding and deficiency in electrical and hydraulic installations.
Two other shelters – Nova Canaã and Tancredo Neves – were also deactivated and the Warao were presented with a proposal to resettle them in another location, the Waraotuma Shelter in Tuaranoko. Part of the indigenous people, however, decided to continue there.
Women wash clothes in the former Operation Acolhida shelter – Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil
Each Warao community is headed by an aidamo, and the aidamos did not want to live under the administration of the Acolhida Operation, with whom they had disagreements regarding the rules imposed within the shelters.
“We stayed here because our children were already studying near here. And we’ve been here before. They also said it would get better. [nossa situação] but it didn’t get better. It is another culture, another way of living together. There was no respect for aidamos. They never consulted us. They never informed us”, says Euligio Baez, one of the six aidamos who run the place.
food insecurity
The choice was not an easy one. By choosing to stay in the old shelter, they would have the freedom to govern themselves, as they did in their original territory, but they would no longer have access to food and security provided by the Acolhida Operation. The situation brought the first major problem for the Warao. Most of them don’t have a job.
“Most remain unemployed. No job, but able to work. We have people who at least know how to be a helper, [trabalhar] in the area of cleaning and trained people who are competent to work in an institution”, says Jeremias Fuentes, another aidamo.
According to the aidamos heard by the report, the community lives off the sale of handicrafts, the collection of recyclable material and government aid. “The majority here are families. These are parents who have four, five children, who have to find a way to support themselves. I believe that the lack of opportunities [de emprego] it could be a type of discrimination, because we are indigenous”, reports Fuentes.
Children of the Warao ethnic group play in the place occupied by indigenous Venezuelans – Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil
According to Norberto Medina, another helper at the shelter, with the little income available to the community, food is insufficient. As a result, the Warao normally eat only one meal a day. “We’re used to it now.”
The community also relies on the help of donations, such as those made by the non-governmental organization (NGO) Ação da Cidadania, including clothes and shoes.
“We have different ethnicities in the city. There are the Indians from the east, there are the Venezuelans, the Indians from Venezuela and they are all starving. Food insecurity is tremendous. There are several children here who were malnourished”, says the NGO’s emergency coordinator, Antônio Carlos Silva.
Despite the difficulties, the Warao persist with their plan to live in Boa Vista, at least for now. “We want our children to continue studying and have a different future. It would be good if we had land to plant corn. We would like that. We don’t know when we can go back. [à Venezuela]but for now, we are here”, says Norberto Medina.
The future of the new Warao generation is also what keeps Aidamo Enoc Silva’s community in Brazil despite the difficulties: “We came from Venezuela with a purpose, but we experience the same mistreatment here as we experienced in Venezuela. The reason we are here is for the children who are studying and have a dream of going to college one day”.
Welcome Operation
Acolhida Operation Shelter was deactivated last year – Rovena Rosa/Agência Brasil
According to the coordination of the Acolhida Operation, the Pintolândia deactivation process involved dialogue with the sheltered indigenous communities. “Commissions were created, made up of beneficiaries and representatives of institutions, in contact with sheltered indigenous people of different profiles and ethnicities, with the aim of deliberating on the physical space of new shelters, services, protection and mitigation of security risks”.
The Acolhida Operation also highlighted that “the commissions discussed strategies for not depending on the shelters, that is, in contact with the indigenous community, opportunities for leaving the shelters were also designed through entrepreneurship programs, interiorization, financial support or formal employment , a priority aspect pointed out by the population to support their autonomy in Brazil”.
Those who wanted could move to Waraotuma a Tuaranoko, where, according to the coordination, the “facilities are more in line with the standards of emergency shelter and the needs identified by the communities, with a culturally sensitive approach to their particularities and taking into account the suggestions made in spaces for dialogue” and the new shelter is exclusively intended for Venezuelan indigenous people, “not being shared with the non-indigenous population”.
Finally, the coordination of the operation stated that it remains committed to identifying lasting solutions that allow the autonomy of indigenous populations in their lives in Brazil. The operation also reported that “the possibility of sheltering and feeding indigenous families in the new Waraotuma shelter in Tuaranoko remains open”.
