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of year in which said health problems are most frequent. These children died with all
the symptoms of diarrhea: fever, constant diarrhea, sometimes with blood, and
vomiting. There were also cases of adults who died for lack of adequate and timely
medical care and due to lack of food.
There is no health care post, clinic or health promoter in the Community. The village is
356 kilometers from the capital and 70 kilometers from the closest hospital. The
closest regional hospital is 225 kilometers away, very close to Asunción, for which
reason it is not easy for the members of the community to go to those health centers.
Currently the nutritional conditions of the children of the Community are quite
precarious. Malnutrition among children is evident. Children’s hair is discolored, their
bellies are swollen, and their height is lower than it should be at their age.
Furthermore, this has negative consequences such as learning and intellectual
development problems. This situation can be changed by beginning, as soon as
possible, a deworming therapy and adequate, permanent nutrition.
10.
In Chapter VI of the Judgment on proven facts, and under the title of “living
conditions of the members of the Yakye Axa indigenous community”, the Court found
that they “do not have access to clean water and the most reliable source is
rainwater. The water that they use on a regular basis comes from pools (water
deposits) located in the lands that they claim; however, it is used both for human
consumption and for personal hygiene, and it is not protected from human contact.”
11.
The State of Paraguay, in turn, in its reply to the application, stated that it
acquiesced to the request to establish a healthcare center, a school, drinking water
supply and sanitary infrastructure for the community, wherever the State can
establish said services as close as possible to the provisional settlement. Also, that
“insofar as possible it acquiesces (to the request to provide) medical care and
education in accordance with the State’s education and health programs.”
12.
The latter point gave rise to the Court’s decision, with regard to reparations, to
order that “…as long as the Community remains landless, given its special state of
vulnerability and its inability to resort to its traditional subsistence mechanisms, the
State must provide sufficient drinking water for consumption and personal hygiene of
the members of the Community; it must provide medical care on a regular basis and
adequate medicines to protect all persons’ health, especially that of the children, the
elderly, and pregnant women, including medicine and adequate treatment for
deworming of all members of the Community; it must provide sufficient food, in
appropriate variety and quantities, for all members of the Community to have
minimum conditions required for a decent life; it must provide latrines or any other
appropriate type of sanitary facilities for effective management of the Community’s
biological wastes, in a manner consistent with public health…”
13.
Both the partial acquiescence by the State and the reparations ordered by the
Court show beyond a doubt that there has been and currently is a lack of basic
services, including drinking water, indispensable for the health and life of the
members of the Community. Therefore, it is not difficult to infer that the death of
children, among others: a two year old, due to dysentery; a six year old due to
dysentery and sores; a one year old, due to meningitis; a two year old, due to
tetanus; a one year old, due to bronchitis; a twelve-day old baby, due to bronchitis; a
two year old, due to bronchitis, were due to their precarious living conditions.