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CENTRAL AMERICA |
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Drought
Feeds Acute Malnutrition in
Guatemalan kids
DEVISADERO, Guatemala - -- Victoria Lopez
cradles her 2-year-old granddaughter
Jennifer, whose chubby cheeks, bloated legs
and stunted growth make her look much
younger than healthy children her age.
"She just sits there -- she doesn't move,"
Lopez, 39, said as she rocked the toddler.
"She's 2 and not even walking yet."
Jennifer's condition is not unique among
children in the hills of Guatemala's
so-called dry corridor along the Pacific.
The country's worst drought in 30 years has
destroyed 80 percent of the region's crops
and claimed the lives of more than a dozen
children so far this year.
President Alvaro Colom declared the problem
a "public calamity" and joined the U.N. in
an urgent appeal for food aid. The World
Food Program and other agencies rushed food
to this Central American nation, but they
warned that aid would end this fall if more
funds are not available.
Although they don't have the gaunt frame of
children suffering severe drought conditions
elsewhere, the problem here is no less
acute. Malnutrition has long been a major
problem, and rates are especially high in
rural areas.
Almost half of Guatemala's children younger
than 5 suffer from chronic malnutrition,
among the highest rate in the world,
according to UNICEF.
Aid workers, food experts and other
officials say the drought threatens to
exacerbate the problem because it hit amid
severe soil erosion, a major disease
infestation, a spike in food prices and a
drop in remittances due to the global
economic crisis.
"The problem of malnutrition won't be in
just the dry corridor but in the whole
country," said Luis Enrique Monterroso, a
leading local nutritionist. "There are
indicators that next year will be worse."
The drought has shoved malnutrition back
into the national spotlight. In response to
news reports of malnutrition-related deaths,
the government and aid agencies delivered
emergency food supplies to more than 300,000
families. And Venezuela, Ecuador, Chile and
other countries shipped in beans, corn and
other food staples.
Crop damage
Guatemalan authorities estimated that as
many as 410,000 families have seen their
crops severely damaged by the drought. Some
families have lost as much as 80 percent of
their yearly corn and bean production -- a
$10 million loss.
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