- Child Killer Diseases Claim 2,300 Children Everyday
Nine men were stabbed or shot dead on 19 April over a territorial dispute in a remote area of Mato Grosso state, deep in the Amazon rainforest.
In the afternoon, hitmen swept through the land in question, known as Linha (road) 15, killing everyone they found. Some of the bodies bore signs of torture.
The worst land-related slaughter Brazil has seen in 21 years reflects a chronic ambiguity around land rights. On this lawless frontier, far from the gaze of the authorities, forest clearance and conflict go hand in hand.
The rampage happened in a remote region, accessible only by an unpaved road. The closest city, Colniza, is a seven-hour-drive in the dry season; when it rains, it can take days. Communication here is so hard that the police were not notified of the crime until almost 24 hours later.
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On 26 April, this reporter was the first and so far the only media to visit the crime scene. The journey involved an hour’s flight in a rented aeroplane followed by a three-hour drive in a 4×4 vehicle.
Around 120 families live in a rural community called Taquarussu do Norte, a smattering of wooden houses with water wells and bathrooms in the backyard and no electricity. Several of them are the offspring of settlers who colonised the neighbouring state of Rondônia in the 1970s and 1980s. Now, they have found their own land to farm. Known as posseiros, or squatters, they have no legal claim and take their chances with the inconsistent law enforcement.
Fearing more attacks, most inhabitants left the region after last month’s violence, especially women and children. In the area where the slaughter took place, dogs roamed inside the houses in search of food and their deceased owners.
Last week, state police arrested two men they suspect of carrying out the murders on the orders of a timber merchant, who is still at large. Squatters, however, said they had a good relationship with loggers (all of them illegal) and blamed unnamed rival farmers for the attack.
Everything in Taquarussu runs informally. Despite the fact they have occupied some 20,000 hectares since the early 2000s and that selling and buying lots are common, none of the families has land titles. As one squatter who asked to remain anonymous put it, “the only document is our presence here”.
The two government agencies in charge of land regulation of that area disagreeabout who owns the land. Incra (the Brazilian Federal Agrarian Reform Agency) said it belonged to Mato Grosso state. Intermat, the state land management agency, said it had belonged to a private owner since 1984, but could not name the owner.
This imprecision is no exception. Official figures gathered by Imazon, an non-profit research institution, show that there are about 160,000 land claims pending regularization.
Moreover, there are 71.3m hectares of public vacant lands in the Amazon, an area twice the size of Germany. These are vulnerable to illegal logging and land-grabbing, according to data gathered by another independent research institute, Ipam Amazônia.
“Land regularization in the Amazon is an essential requirement for conflict reduction, curtailment of deforestation and implementation of more sustainable policies in the region,” says an Imazon report published last month.
In the meantime, two thousand, three hundred children and 145 women die daily to Child and Maternal killer diseases in Nigeria.
This statistics was given by the Niger state Nutrition Officer, Mrs. Amina Isah yesterday during a capacity building training on Health and Nutrition challenges and funding gaps to promote effective reportage of health and nutrition issues for health reporters.
According to her, out of this figure, 500 children die from malnourishment adding that this development has made the country the second largest contributor to the under five and Maternal mortality rate in the world.
Giving the nutritional status of children in Niger state, the Nutritional Officer said that 409,993 children in the state are stunted, 65,815 children are wasted while 186,655 children are underweight adding that 9,040 children have been diagnosed to be suffering from acute malnutrition.
She expressed concern that Niger state has moved from medium burden to high burden state which has placed her as a priority state for nutrition intervention in Nigeria.
Proffering a way forward, Isah said that the state can stop malnutrition if the government and relevant health partners adopt a comprehensive costed state multi-sectoral nutrition strategic action plan, ensure adequate funding, comprehensive response treatment and prevention programs.
Guardian with additional report from Tina George
