The border regions shared by Peru, Colombia, and Brazil on the Amazon River have emerged as a hotspot for COVID-19. Cases affect those settled in towns, most of whom are poor and live on the informal economy. Cases are also spreading toward the Javarí Valley Indigenous Land in Brazil, near the border with Peru, to semi-nomadic indigenous groups that shun contact with wider society. Even when they seek to cut off contact as COVID-19 spreads, officials contest their right to do so. 
 
The spread of COVID-19 brings many risks. Health care systems and supply chains are weak. Oxygen, for example, is critically short. Support for social protection is almost non-existent. People face great difficulties in following public health guidance such as handwashing because clean water and sanitation are not available. One observer fears that what is already a disaster will be a massacre, aggravated by official incompetence. Among the risks are that indigenous knowledge will be lost as elders are most vulnerable to COVID-19. Many who worked to keep languages and cultures alive have already died.
 
Churches, and especially the Catholic Church, are filling in at least some of the gaps. Assistance includes fundraising drives for emergency medical supplies in Loreto, Ucayali, and Madre de Dios, and the actions of Caritas and social ministry offices. The national Caritas office in Peru joined the defense ministry, several TV stations, and other organizations to distribute food baskets to nearly 200,000 families nationwide. Local Caritas offices have been delivering food and hygiene supplies to families in need. Church-run radio stations are broadcasting spots about preventive measures, including some in indigenous languages. Church offices in various parts of the Amazon are providing psychological assistance, as well as aid to indigenous people who were working or studying in Lima and are now trying to return to their home communities because the quarantine has left them with no income. One person noted: “We are not competing with anyone in this fight against the coronavirus. We are simply taking health and life to people in Nauta and Iquitos and along the river.”

(Based on: June 2, 2020, New Humanitarian article.)