marilena s two month old grandson has pneumonia. he doesn t have a name yet. yanomami people don t name their children for several years in case they die. it s a very real fear. five minutes walk from the health centre, a polluted creek doesn t stop the children playing. the mercury used to extract gold in the mine upstream has poisoned these once crystal clear waters. fishing and drinking here is now impossible. jenny played in this water as a kid, though much has changed not least the temptation for young indigenous to get involved in illegal mining. and this is the mine that s causing their pain. production in full swing, it s scarring the landscape and its people. there are as many as 20,000 illegal miners working in the region. we just passed one of the worst affected areas in the yanomami territory. we couldn t land. the polot said many of the miners are armed, and he was worried they d shoot at the plane. in the past few years, monitoring of illegal activity in the
the health centre s become afield hospital on the front line of illegal mining. there are new cases every day old and young. nobody escapes this scourge. outside, a makeshift ward is full of patients with malaria yet another disease brought in by outsiders and making the yanomami sick. marilena is one of them.