Chile: Jailed Mapuche Leader Faces Death as Health Worsens | dorset chiapas solidarity

8.1.17

Chile: Jailed Mapuche Leader Faces Death as Health Worsens | dorset chiapas solidarity:

A new medical report warns that jailed Chilean Indigenous Mapuche leader
Francisca Linconao is at risk of dying as her hunger strike to demand
her freedom continues to weaken her already-fragile health.


“The severe deterioration of her health condition can become
irreversible and even cost her life,” says the report completed on
Dec. 31, 2016, by a certified medical and psychological team. “Among the
risks to which the patient is exposed with the hunger strike are
permanent consequences in various vital functions, such as neurological,
liver, cardiac and renal functions.”


According to the doctors, the detained leader not only suffers
physical deterioration, but spiritual loss of strength as she is
deprived of freedom “which prevents her from accessing what she
considers her main source of energy, the one that comes from nature, its
sacred ceremonies and its mission to offer health.”


The 60-year-old activist has been on hunger strike since Dec. 23 and
only consumes liquids. She was detained in 2013 and accused of arson in
an incident that led to the deaths of two powerful landlords and still
awaits trial.