The reason many Guatemalans are coming to the border? A profound hunger crisis. [View all]
Source: Washington Post
The reason many Guatemalans are coming to the border? A profound hunger crisis.
By Kevin Sieff
April 1, 2021 at 5:36 p.m. EDT
PANZÓS, Guatemala — The team of nutritionists looked at 11-month-old Dilcia Cajbon, her ribs visible through her skin, and they knew immediately.
“Severe acute malnutrition,” said Stefany Martinez, the leader of the UNICEF team, as the child was lifted onto a scale.
Like many in this rural stretch of Guatemala, Dilcia’s family was down to one meal a day. Storms had flooded the nearby palm plantation, the biggest source of local employment. To eke out what little the family had to eat, Dilcia’s mother had held off on giving her youngest child solid food.
As more and more Central American families arrive at the United States’ southern border, the municipality of Panzós offers a stark illustration of the deepening food crisis that is contributing to the new wave of migration.
So far this year, more unaccompanied minors processed by immigration agents are from Guatemala than any other country. Analysts and U.S. officials refer obliquely to “poverty” as an underlying cause of that influx. But often the reason is far more specific: hunger.
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Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/04/02/us-border-migrants-guatemala/
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