‘Children were dying. We didn’t even have aspirin’: the Indigenous Venezuelans forced far from home

Warao girls on their way home from school in Manaus. The children are adapting fast to their new reality, but some fear traditional knowledge such as weaving, fishing and hunting – and the language and songs that go with those traditions – will be lost. Photograph: Nicola Zolin

At 4pm, the sound of sirens is fading. On the pavement, a teenage girl – her eyes darting back and forth to monitor police presence – starts smoking crack. She is across the street from “Hotel 583”, a makeshift shelter in a dangerous part of downtown Manaus, the capital of Amazonas in Brazil.

On the second floor of the building, in the Cidade de Deus slum, 20 of the 27 Warao people who live here cram into a sweltering room measuring about 20 sq metres. Some sleep on the floor, while the more fortunate are in hammocks. The children’s stomachs are swollen, the effect of parasites, and their skin is covered in rashes.