- A colony in Paraguay has seen an influx of arrivals due to COVID-19 skepticism.
- The community claims it is free from "5G, chemtrails, fluoridated water, mandatory vaccinations, and healthcare mandates."
- They have said that the pandemic which has killed 5.6 million people is "non-existent."
Immigrants have settled in Paraguay's poorest region of Caazapá, creating a colony designed as a refuge from "socialist trends of current economic and political situations worldwide" – as well as "5G, chemtrails, fluoridated water, mandatory vaccinations, and healthcare mandates," according to its website.
The colony, named El Paraíso Verde, or Green Paradise, was founded in 2016 by Sylvia and Erwin Annau, a composer and tax advisor born in Vienna, Austria, in 1954.
El Paraiso Verde was started in 2016 with the dream of a better life and future outside of the "matrix" and is "a refuge for "'conservative free thinkers,'" states its website.
It is mainly populated German, Austrian and Swiss natives, many of whom are escaping COVID-19 restrictions, The Guardian reported. On the El Paraíso Verde website, Annau says he is eager to attract more settlers from the US.
In a video on the colony's YouTube channel, German-speaking residents explaining their move was driven by skepticism about the COVID-19 virus and vaccines.
Another video shows a teenage resident of the colony describing the COVID-19 restrictions in her native Germany as "madness."
The community is set on 4,000 acres of fenced land with security guards. Videos show well-spaced homes, residents enjoying yoga classes, a school, a lake, and a patch of jungle. According to its publicity, El Paraíso Verde is planned as a settlement for 6,000 people with several "villages" and a city, possibly expanding to more than 20,000 people.
The El Paraíso Verde project currently has some 150 mostly Austrian, German, and German-speaking Swiss residents, say reports. Caazapá saw a jump from four German residents in 2019 to over 100 in 2020 as the pandemic unfolded, according to official figures cited by The Guardian.
A German who knows the settlement well told the Guardian its residents want to flee the "deep state and one world order." The community was attracting older residents who believe many people are dying in care homes [after vaccination]," and "others, in their 40s, are trying to bring their children over here to escape."
The pandemic has hit the Latin American country hard, with Paraguay having the world's highest daily proportion of Covid deaths in June 2021, according to The Guardian.
The community of COVID skeptics has concerned local health authorities with Dr. Nadia Riveros, Caazapá's head of public health, telling The Guardian how painful the pandemic was for the area, which has no ICU beds and a single ambulance.
"We don't want to go through that again. I think foreigners, wherever they're from, should have to get vaccinated before entering the country," she told The Guardian.
Annau, the colony's leader, has also been accused of making Islamophobic comments in a 2017 speech to members of the Paraguayan government. He said: "Islam is not part of Germany. We are enlightened Christians, and we are concerned about our daughters. We see the Qur'an as [containing] an ideology of political domination, which is not compatible with democratic and Christian values," per The Guardian.
El Paraíso Verde did not reply when contacted by Insider on Friday.
In a February 5 statement on the El Paraíso Verde website, Annau wrote: "We are not anti-vaccination, but advocates of the right of choice over the substances someone gets into their body. Everyone must do their own research to determine if they want to accept the vaccinations currently being offered into their body."