On April 1^st, Brazil saw the first official coronavirus case in a member of its indigenous population. The 20-year-old woman was a member of the Kokama community, located in the district of Santo Antonio do Içá. By April 9^th, at least seven indigenous Brazilians had tested positive for the virus. The cases were split between three Amazon states: Amazonas, Pará and Roraima. However, the practicalities of surveying diffuse and uncontacted communities – as well as the familiar story of test-kit shortages – mean the true number is likely higher. April 9^th also saw the first of the Yanomami community to die of the virus. The Brazilian health ministry stated that a 15-year-old boy died of severe respiratory complications, after being admitted to intensive care on April 3^rd.

Indigenous groups make up around 0.5% of Brazil’s population, but several factors make them one of the country’s highest-risk groups. Respiratory illnesses were already a leading cause of death in indigenous communities before COVID-19, with influenza and measles outbreaks historically ravaging communities. Many communities lack the infrastructure for proper containment. Scarcity of soap and hand sanitizer means many are unable to adequately protect themselves, while close quarters living and shared utensils provide the ideal conditions to spread the virus. Individual deaths also hit these communities much harder. Dr. Sofia Mendonça, co-ordinator of the Federal University of São Paulo’s indigenous health project, describes how: “Everyone gets sick, and you lose all the old people, their wisdom and social organization […] It’s chaos.”

On top of this, the ventilator and personal protective equipment shortages affecting the rest of the world are amplified in indigenous communities. Many local hospitals are unequipped to treat the seriously ill, meaning patients may have to travel up to 1000km by boat for life-saving treatment. Without sufficient testing, traveling health workers risk spreading the virus further into indigenous territories.

However, documents containing COVID-19 information and containment practices are being distributed. These documents detail the dangers of communal living, utensil sharing and advise the use of traditional seclusion practices, such as those already prescribed to women after giving birth. Some communities are planning to split into smaller groups and seek refuge deep inside the forest, which is how many have avoided extinction during past epidemics. Other communities, such as the Karajá people, have suspended travel in their territories. Signs posted along roads plead for an understanding of their fragility.

Despite this, isolation brings a new set of challenges. Many communities depend on trade, pension schemes and government cash-transfer programs. This means many do not hunt or grow enough food for self-sufficiency. In these circumstances, containment could mean starvation. Marivelton Baré, president of the Federation of Indigenous Organizations of Rio Negro, describes how controlled food aid shipments are key to containment. He warns: “If the choice is either being infected or going hungry, most will choose the first.”

Organizations as such these, as well as university groups and charities, represent the last line of defense for indigenous communities in Brazil. In 2019, President Jair Bolsonaro pledged to open indigenous reserves to mining and agribusiness. Since then, environmental and social agencies protecting indigenous communities and their lands have been slowly dismantled. Bolsonaro’s regime of land-grabs and reversed agrarian reform represents the largest set of anti-environmental policies since the military dictatorship ended in 1985.

Between government-backed profiteering and illegal activity, indigenous lands are under siege. Territory protected in the 1988 constitution is now open to national and transnational corporate exploitation – alongside the usual threats from drug traffickers, illegal loggers, poachers and wildcat miners. On top of environmental devastation and violence, these invaders bring the virus into the heart of vulnerability. Amazônia Real reported that Yanomami leaders suspect miners are responsible for transmitting the virus to its 26,000 strong population.

Further threats come from outside the continent. American evangelical missionary Andrew Tonkin, twice the target of investigations for attempted invasions of indigenous lands, led another invasion in March of this year. The expedition’s aim was to convert indigenous people in the Javari Valley, a protected region home to 16 of Brazil’s 107 known uncontacted groups. Lucas Marubo, head of the Marubo Villages Organization of Rio Ituí and member of the Indigenous Peoples of the Javari Valley Union, told Mongabay: “They are armed, have drones and GPS […] equipment to make contact […] this is our fear.”

The Brazilian government is far from denouncing such attempts. In 2019, Bolsonaro drew outrage by appointing former evangelical missionary Ricardo Lopes Dias as the new head of the government’s official indigenous protection agency, the National Indian Foundation (FUNAI). Similarly, increased illegal activity in indigenous lands during the pandemic has been met by the Environmental Institution’s decision to decrease efforts and funding to fight these environmental crimes.

While Bolsonaro’s minimization of the coronavirus crisis as just “a little flu” may just about pass as routine ineptitude or authoritarian self-interest, the same stance cannot be taken with Brazil’s indigenous situation. The deliberate dismantling of protections combined with wholesale inaction in the face of the virus represents a continuation of the genocide against indigenous communities and must be denounced as such. Coronavirus simply represents another tool for speeding up the ethnic cleansing of profitable lands, with the added bonus of plausible deniability.

José Carlos Meirelles, who pioneered indigenous non-contact policies three decades ago, summed it up: “They’ll literally kill them, and the few that survive, their culture will be destroyed […] It’s genocide.”