São Paulo, Brazil – After taking office in January 2023, one of Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's first goals was restoring health and security to some of the country's 1.7 million Indigenous people.
He inherited a humanitarian crisis. From 2019 to 2022, 570 children in Brazil's northern Yanomami Indigenous Territory died of starvation or preventable disease under the leadership of President Jair Bolsonaro. The right-wing leader had actively encouraged the exploitation of the Amazon Rainforest by ranchers, loggers and miners, and systematically undercut government agencies designed to protect Brazil's Indigenous peoples.
