Brazil’s first ever minister of indigenous peoples tackles crises on multiple fronts

Sonia Guajajara is fighting back against the oppression of communities in the Amazon. She talks to Amanda Coletta and Marina Dias

Guajajara was a vocal critic of former president Jair Bolsonaro (AFP/Getty)

She was a month into her new job, and Sonia Guajajara’s plate was already full. Brazil‘s first minister of indigenous peoples was in Boa Vista, the capital of Roraima state, responding to a crisis she had called a “genocide”.

She had visited a hospital where scores of Yanomami, an indigenous group in the Amazon, had been taken to be treated for disease; a consequence of the illegal mining that had surged in their territory under the government of former president Jair Bolsonaro.