Radio Mundo Real

As it happens with a large number of Paraguayan peasant communities, the Huber Dure settlement in Canindeyu department is surrounded by soy monoculture plantations. The National Peasant Federation (FNC) of Paraguay denounced that the application of agrotoxics in these plantations cause serious illnesses in the population of this settlement.

The seriousness of this issue reached its highest point this week: on Monday, July 21st, two girls died poisoned with agrotoxics in this settlement, near Curuguaty city. Three-year-old Adelaida Alvarez died at her home while her family was arranging to take her to the hospital; her younger sister, six-months-old Adela, died after being discharged from the Curuguaty Hospital since the doctors considered the child was fine.

In an interview with Real World Radio, Teodolina Villalba, leader of the FNC said that the government health authorities continued to deny that the deaths were related to agrotoxic fumigations in the area. 300 families live in the five-thousand-hectare settlement where illnesses are recurrent. In the past days, around 40 people (among them several children) had to be hospitalized.

According to Villalba, the FNC blames the State and its different bodies for these deaths and for the illnesses affecting the peasants of the settlement: “the State, health policies and the National Phytosanitary and Seeds Quality Service) in charge of controlling which poisons can be used, are to blame here”.

On Friday, July 25, the FNC organized a mobilization to demand justice for the Huber Dure girls and the population of this community who continue to suffer the impacts of these fumigations.