Category:The Amazon

Axia Energia is sued amid Parakanã health crisis

“We are drinking mud”

Tiffany Higgins

Tiffany Higgins

— 12 min read
Axia Energia is sued amid Parakanã health crisis
Lack of safe water has forced Parakanã Indigenous people to drink directly from streams, harming their health, according to Parakanã leaders. Amid disease outbreaks and a scarcity of treated water in the Parakanã Indigenous Territory—which prosecutors warn is at risk of “imminent humanitarian collapse”—the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office in Pará state sued Axia Energia on July 5. Prosecutors accuse Axia of underfunding the Parakanã Program and threatening Parakanã leaders that the company would shut down the program on July 11 unless they accepted its proposed terms. Axia's proffered contract, by not reflecting population growth, would constitute a "budget freeze" amid an already-existing shortfall in funding urgently needed services, said prosecutors. Axia representatives were recorded allegedly invoking the possible withdrawal of health-care services — specifically mentioning children — while pressing the Parakanã to accept a three-month extension on unfavorable terms that the MPF alleges amounts to "institutional blackmail." The situation is "a continuing violation of minimum conditions for survival," putting Indigenous lives at risk, prosecutors warned in their emergency injunction. The conditions stem in part from Axia’s alleged underfunding of programs it is legally obligated to provide, including potable water, according to the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office (MPF). Prosecutors asked a federal court for an emergency order requiring Axia to continue funding the decades-old compensation program while a broader legal case is developed. The current agreement financing the Parakanã Program was scheduled to expire on July 11, creating an imminent risk that existing water, health-care and other essential services could be interrupted, the MPF says. Photo: MPF.

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