Risk coronavirus or go hungry: an impossible choice faced by Colombia's indigenous communities

When María Orfilia fled the Emberá Chamí indigenous community in Risaralda, Colombia 20 years ago she thought she was escaping danger. 

Fleeing threats against her family from armed guerrilla groups, she set off at 11pm and walked throughout the night, until she and her nine-month-old baby arrived at the main road to catch the morning bus to the city.

Arriving in Medellín – Colombia’s second-largest city – Ms Orfilia was optimistic. But now the coronavirus pandemic has made her want to return to her community. 

Ms Orfilia lives with her family in Santo Domingo, a poor neighbourhood which sprawls 400m up the hillside from the city centre and is a hub for informal commerce. 

Although she has managed to dodge the virus, she has been unable to sell her handmade necklaces since national quarantine was imposed on March 20.

And while she struggles to put food on the table, the household bills keep coming.

“This city can’t even let us have a drop of water for free,” Ms Orfilia said. Back in her community, they don’t pay for water; it comes from a stream, she points out.

“Many of our council members work in informal activities, selling artisanal handicrafts, food … they live from day to day,” Adolfo Calderón, governor of Medellín’s Chibcariwak Indigenous Council, told The Telegraph. “This is why the pandemic has hit our informal economy so hard.” 

According to Mr Calderón, the current situation for indigenous people in the city is “critical.” 

Although he says none of the 2,500 council members have contracted the virus, four months of lockdown have left them with no choice but to work and risk a fine – while exposing themselves to contagion – or to sacrifice their income and go hungry. 

Two weeks ago, the city’s Mayor Daniel Quintero imposed even stricter lockdown restrictions, warning that with 7,743 active cases in Medellín at the time of writing, the virus was reaching its peak. 

The virus is raging through the country as a whole, with Colombia reporting more than 200,000 cases, placing it sixth on list of the world’s 10 most affected countries. With an average of five new confirmed cases everyday, intensive care units in the country’s capital, Bogotá, are at 91.7 per cent capacity.

“It’s painful to say, but if this thing makes me die, I’ll die,” said 57-year-old María Jansasoy from the Inga community in Putumayo, who sells artisanal handicrafts in the city centre. “But I have to go out to work, because if I don’t, this pandemic won’t kill us, hunger will.”

“I haven’t had any help from the government, not even one pound of rice,” she added. 

There are 115 different indigenous communities in Colombia, according to a 2018 census, making up around four per cent of the national population of approximately 50 million people.

Epidemiologist Jorge López, who works in the departments of Chocó, Antioquia and Amazonas, says the health of indigenous communities is poor, mainly due to malnutrition which makes them vulnerable to acute illnesses.

And in the event they are displaced to large cities – like Ms Orfilia – their often precarious work conditions and sporadic income means they can’t afford to feed themselves properly. 

According to official data, 61 indigenous communities were infected with Covid-19 at the time of writing. While the INS recorded a total of 85 deaths, these official numbers are always two weeks behind current figures, says López.

Colombia’s National Organisation of Indigenous Peoples (ONIC) reports that the highest numbers of active cases are in the departments of Amazonas, Nariño, Chocó, Cauca and La Guajira, with Amazonas the worst affected.

Humberto Monje, leader of the Aticoya Indigenous Reservation in Puerto Nariño, Amazonas, has experienced this first-hand.

Mr Monje was one of the unlucky members of the community to contract the novel coronavirus, which he described as a “heavy flu.” While he has recovered, others are still doing so, and three have died.

According to Dr López, indigenous communities in the Amazon have become infected with Covid-19 through sporadic contact with the outside world: either through tourism or trade, both of which have ground to a halt since lockdown, leaving communities struggling for economic resources. 

But by the time lockdown was imposed, the virus had already spread, made worse by the fact that the Amazon is a border region, he added. 

In the Amazon basin – made up of Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela – nearly 20,000 members of indigenous communities have contracted Covid-19, and 1018 people have died from the virus, the Pan-Amazonian Ecclesial Network reported on 14th July.

Because of indigenous communities’ reduced contact with the outside world, their immune defences aren’t strong enough to handle the virus, Dr López explains.

“Their illnesses are the illnesses of others,” he said. “This is historic, not just during the pandemic.”

In Colombia isolated indigenous territories have been historically abandoned by governments that do not prioritise their development, says Dr López. This, combined with poor health and a language barrier that complicates communication with the outside world, means their risk of health complications is higher.

And if they make the long journey by foot, or boat, to the San Rafael Hospital in Leticia, the nearest city, there is no intensive care unit and only seven ventilators, says Dr López. 

The other pandemic

Luis Fernando Arias, director of the ONIC, says indigenous communities’ “disproportionate suffering” from the pandemic arises because many are confronting it amid ongoing armed conflict. 

“This is another pandemic, which is not over in some regions,” he said, despite the 2016 peace deal with armed insurgents, the FARC, which fought a long-running civil war with the government.

Control of remote indigenous territories is being violently disputed by paramilitary groups, military insurgencies, Farc dissidents, narcotraffickers and illegal miners.

These land disputes can lead to deforestation, which damages indigenous communities’ crops that they rely on for food autonomy.

“There is a long story of exclusion, racism … and the exploitation of [indigenous communities’] natural resources,” explained Ruth Chaparro, deputy director of FUCAI, an organisation that protects the rights of indigenous communities across Colombia.

“Indigenous people aren’t a [state] priority,” she pointed out. “And 500 years of neglect cannot be changed during three months of a pandemic.” 

Against this backdrop of discrimination, Mr Arias claimed that these communities – which he says have been left out of the national strategy to contain the spread of Covid-19 – haven’t received enough government support.

Carlos Baena, Colombia’s Vice Minister for Participation and Equality of Rights, insists the government has evenly distributed over 500,000 emergency food packages to indigenous communities across the country, as well as biosecurity kits for protection.

But Mr Arias says state humanitarian aid is arriving “drop by drop.”

Taking protection into their own hands

According to Chaparro of the FUCAI, many indigenous communities gave up waiting for government help a long time ago. 

“Indigenous people think, if we don’t take care of ourselves, nobody will … we will simply stop existing,” she said.

Determined not to let this happen, they have ramped up security controls, deploying guards to closely monitor who is entering and leaving communities, in order to contain the spread of Covid-19.

The ONIC has also developed its own territorial monitoring system – available online and soon in app form – to track the spread of the virus in indigenous communities.

It sends out epidemiological alerts about hotspots to leaders, so that they can prepare and protect their communities. The system collects information from leaders and indigenous councils, combining it with public health data and previous census counts.

The FUCAI has been teaching communities in their native languages about the complexities of Covid-19 testing, which has been contentious for some, due to their lack of confidence in western medicine. 

But this, says Ms Chaparro, is simply because they don’t know any different. 

“There are some semi-nomadic communities … that have still not had contact with western medicine, that don’t know what a vaccine is, a hospital is, nor an ambulance, and much less an intensive care unit,” she pointed out.

The reason they are still alive today is because of their traditional medicine, she maintains. 

To protect themselves from Covid-19, communities have been gargling lemon with bicarbonate of soda, and consuming natural medicines such as turmeric, garlic, ginger, hibiscus flower and honey, as well as burning eucalyptus leaves and vaporising other sacred plants.

While he recognises the power of indigenous medicine to combat past epidemics, such as cholera, it’s still unknown how effective it is at fighting the novel coronavirus, epidemiologist Dr López says, as it hasn’t protected everyone, especially elderly community leaders.

Vice Minister Baena claims that “intercultural dialogues” are currently taking place between indigenous organisations and the government, to promote communication between the Indigenous Health System (SISPI) – which has recently been granted the equivalent of approximately £220,000 – and the national health system.

But for this step towards inclusion to work after decades of trying, it requires “knowledge and confidence building,” and “humility from both sides,” Ms Chaparro says. 

“This little being– which indigenous elders refer to as Covid-19 – has come to teach us that life is all that matters, that we are all vulnerable … the planet is vulnerable, that family is important, that cleanliness, washing our hands, and nutrition, are all fundamental,” she explained. 

And these messages, she says, have been part of indigenous cultural tradition all along.

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