IMMIGRATION
Venezuelan indigenous child dies with signs of malnutrition in Itabuna shelter
Immigrants claim that the amount of food provided by the city hall is not enough to feed everyone in the shelter
Published on May 8, 2024 at 9:49 pm
The child’s body was laid to rest this Wednesday (8) and buried in the Campo Santo Cemetery Credit: Reproduction/TV Bahia
A two-year-old indigenous Venezuelan child died in Itabuna, in the south of the state, with advanced signs of malnutrition. The child from the Warao ethnic group lived in a school, in the Mangabinha neighborhood, which serves as a temporary shelter for immigrants maintained by the city of Itabuna. The case happened on Tuesday (7).
The child’s body was laid to rest this Wednesday (8) at Colégio Estadual Antonio Carlos Magalhães and taken to Campo Santo Cemetery.
In a statement, the Secretariat for Social Promotion and Combating Poverty (Semps) of Itabuna regretted what happened and stated that for at least nine months it has been providing humanitarian assistance at the Antonio Carlos Magalhães State College for the subsistence of indigenous Venezuelan immigrants.
“All meals are provided, including special ones for children. It also offers cleaning and personal hygiene materials, health care, referrals to the school network and sanitary care”, he explained.
In an interview with TV Santa Cruz, the child’s uncle, Amário Matos, stated that the amount of food provided by the city hall is not enough to feed everyone in the shelter, which has 11 families, 36 of which are children. “No [recebemos] a lot of food, a kilo of pasta, a kilo of rice, a kilo of wheat flour, two kilos of tapioca and two chickens each for two weeks”, he said.
Semps stated that it also provides a technical team with a social worker and psychologist to monitor the group within the shelter and that the professionals have already reported having drawn the attention of families regarding the children’s nutrition. Also according to the secretariat, food is sent to immigrants according to the foods they are most familiar with, at the request of the families themselves.
Still in a statement, Semps stated that, despite efforts to maintain humanitarian aid at the shelter, “due to their different culture, immigrants are not very concerned about hygiene, they even do not comply with sanitary and environmental guidelines in relation to packaging of trash”.
School wall caved in
Also on Tuesday night (7), a piece of the school wall, at the back of the institution, fell. There were no injuries in the accident and Civil Defense inspected the scene.
The fall was caused by infiltrations in the structure due to rain, according to the city hall. The management states that the building was closed for a long time and was recently granted by the State Government to temporarily house Venezuelan indigenous families who arrived in the city in September 2023.
Part of the school wall fell due to bad weather Credit: Disclosure
