The surge in fires in Brazil's Amazon rainforest this year fueled a spike i...
FILE PHOTO: An aerial view of a tract of Amazon jungle burning as it is cleared by farmers in Itaituba, Para, Brazil September 26, 2019. REUTERS/Ricardo Moraes
Roughly 5,000 children aged nine or younger were treated each month in May and June in 36 areas within Brazil’s so-called “arc of deforestation,” the area partially encircling the Amazon where destruction of the forest is the highest, according to a study by the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, a public health research institute.
The study only examined cases for May and June, the latest data available, when the number of fires were slightly higher than the previous year. But that period is well before the surge in August when fires in the Amazon nearly tripled compared to the same period a year ago. Environmentalists and researchers say that farmers and others destroying the forest were purposefully setting the fires. Brazil’s government sent in the military to fight the fires and launched an investigation into the causes.
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