{"id":153923,"date":"2020-02-17T12:00:18","date_gmt":"2020-02-17T12:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=153923"},"modified":"2020-02-13T09:46:57","modified_gmt":"2020-02-13T09:46:57","slug":"drought-and-hunger-why-thousands-of-guatemalans-are-fleeing-north","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2020\/02\/drought-and-hunger-why-thousands-of-guatemalans-are-fleeing-north\/","title":{"rendered":"Drought and Hunger: Why Thousands of Guatemalans Are Fleeing North"},"content":{"rendered":"

The threat of famine and the battle for dwindling natural resources are increasingly being recognised as major factors in the exodus.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Children at the courtyard of their housing at the municipality of San Juan de Atit\u00e1n, one of the poorest places in the World, located at the department of Huehutenango, Guatemala.
\u00a0Photograph: Saul Martinez\/EPA<\/p><\/div>\n

7 Feb 2020 – <\/em>Martina Garc\u00eda grinds just enough maize kernels to make a handful of tortillas which she serves to her children and grandson for breakfast with a sprinkling of salt.<\/p>\n

Garc\u00eda, 40, must ration the family\u2019s last few sacks of tiny corncobs after drought and prolonged heatwaves linked to the climate emergency devastated crops across Guatemala<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a result, record numbers of subsistence farming families are going hungry: health officials registered more than 15,300 cases of acute malnutrition in children under five last year \u2013 up nearly 24% from 2018. It\u2019s the highest number of acute malnutrition cases since 2015, when a severe drought destroyed harvests across Central America.<\/p>\n

Rural communities in the Dry Corridor \u2013 a region which stretches through Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua \u2013 are bearing the brunt, with impoverished indigenous families like Garc\u00eda\u2019s in Jocot\u00e1n, among the hardest hit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m lucky if I can find pumpkin flowers,\u201d said the emaciated Garc\u00eda. \u201cBut we mostly just eat tortillas.\u201d<\/p>\n

After an irregular rainy season and an unpromising harvest, almost 80%<\/a> of maize grown in Guatemala\u2019s highland region was lost, according to Oxfam. All that remains for many families are tiny corncobs studded with discoloured grains that look like rotten teeth.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A child plays with a plastic bag in October 2019, where the drought causes dozens of cases of child malnutrition. Photograph: Esteban Biba\/EPA<\/p><\/div>\n

In October 2109, a baby in a nearby community died after not eating for many days. At least 33,000 children<\/a> need urgent medical treatment due to acute malnutrition, according to Oxfam Guatemala.<\/p>\n

Central America is one of the world\u2019s most dangerous regions outside a warzone, where a toxic mix of violence, poverty and corruption has forced millions to flee north in search of security.<\/p>\n

Now, drought, famine and the battle for dwindling natural resources are increasingly being recognized as major factors in the exodus<\/a>.<\/p>\n

And it seems to be getting worse: 2019 was the driest year in a decade with only 65 days of rain<\/a>, according to Guatemala\u2019s National Institute of Seismology, Volcanology, Meteorology and Hydrology. Guatemala\u2019s subsistence farmers depend on rainfall \u2013 which is increasingly erratic \u2013 and most lack alternative sources of water.<\/p>\n

Around one million Guatemalans \u2013 15% of the population \u2013 are currently unable to meet their daily food requirements, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).<\/p>\n

Amid the growing threat of famine, almost 265,000 <\/a>Guatemalans migrants searching for work, safety and food security were detained at the US southern border in 2019 \u2013 a 130% increase on the previous fiscal year.<\/p>\n

Worsening hunger across the region is a factor in the rise in migrant caravans trying to reach the US overland<\/a>, according to both analysts and migrants themselves.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

View of crops and a forest on a hillside damaged by deforestation, pests and prolonged droughts in the La Ceiba Talquezal village in the municipality of Jocot\u00e1n in eastern Guatemala.
Photograph: Marvin Recinos\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p><\/div>\n

The caravans have been met with repression and hostility by Mexican and American authorities<\/a> who accuse the migrants and refugees of political subversion and criminality.<\/p>\n

Hunger is not a new phenomenon in Guatemala: at least 60% of the population live in poverty, hundreds of thousands rely on food aid, and almost 50% of children suffer stunted physical and cognitive development due to chronic malnourishment.<\/p>\n

But experts warn that the additional burden of extreme weather is overwhelming these communities, which have been long ignored and repressed by the government.<\/p>\n

Marc-Andre Prost, a WFP regional nutrition adviser, told Reuters: \u201cClimate change is not responsible for this situation but it\u2019s definitely exacerbating a situation where people don\u2019t have the capacity to cope.\u201d<\/p>\n

Guatemala\u2019s new president, Alejandro Giammattei, like numerous predecessors, has pledged to make child malnutrition a national priority, but the 2020 budget proposed a decrease of $27m to the ministry of health and a $13m increase for defense. (Congress failed to approve the budget in November, and details of the new budget have not yet been released.)<\/p>\n

For Garc\u00eda, the situation is desperate: food aid has yet to reach her canton, so once the maize runs out in March, she must find backbreaking work picking coffee \u2013 or else risk starvation. There\u2019s no guarantee she\u2019ll even find work, as a leaf-eating fungus known as roya \u2013 w<\/em>hich thrives in warm conditions \u2013 has also devastated coffee crops.<\/p>\n

Garc\u00eda, who\u2019s weak from chronic hunger, said: \u201cI\u2019ll get paid $4 a day. But if I pick less than 46kg, I won\u2019t get paid.\u201d<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theguardian.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

7 Feb 2020 – The threat of famine and the battle for dwindling natural resources are increasingly being recognised as major factors in the exodus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":153924,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[1405,1738,487,541,883,70],"class_list":["post-153923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latin-america-and-the-caribbean","tag-basic-needs","tag-guatemala","tag-human-rights","tag-latin-america-caribbean","tag-migrants","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}