Guatemala on famine alert
Guatemala: Alarming malnutrition spread in some Guatemalan areas
forced the country’s authorities to declare different alert stages,
including maximum, aimed at fighting this scourge, mostly in children.
Orange and pink are the categories established, where those cases are
more evident. According to local media reports, thousands of Guatemalans
that live in 4,089 communities are at high risk of suffering famine,
resulting from a drop to 80 and 60 percent in their harvest of beans and
corn, respectively.
From May to the present date, the number of populations at risk has
increased 114 percent, according to a report by the Secretariat of Food
and Nutritional Security.
According to those data, the most affected localities are in El
Progreso, Zacapa, Chiquimula, Jalapa and Jutiapa departments, which are
included in what is known as the dry corridor in eastern Guatemala.
In Jalapa, where they decreed orange alert, many people have been
assisted in health centers so far and the number of communities, where
great vulnerability has been detected have reached 113, not meaning that
there is a large number of children affected by malnutrition or dying of
hunger, the authorities clarified.
They decreed red alert in Baja Verapaz department, where 160
communities from seven municipalities have reported lack of the
necessary food for survival and the cases of malnutrition are evident.
The country’s authorities have planned distribution, coming soon, of
products as corn, beans, fortified flour, chicken and cooking oil, and
other actions that will also be extended to the rest of the affected
areas, to lessen the impact of those dificulties.
Guatemala, Prensa Latina
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