Colombia's Wayu people live on land rich in resources. So why are their children dying of hunger?
Natalia Torres Garzón in La Guajira, Colombia
Thu 2 May 2024 05.00 EDT
In the early hours of the morning, an ambulance carries Rosa Epieyu and her nine-month-old son, Mateo, from Joumana, a Wayúu Indigenous community in La Guajira, Colombia, to a hospital in the nearby town of Manaure. There, a doctor tells Epieyu her son is suffering from malnutrition.
To Epieyu, the diagnosis feels like history repeating itself; one of Mateo’s older sisters was almost lost to malnutrition. Panicked, she grabs some essentials and jumps back into the ambulance for the hour and a half drive to a better-resourced hospital in the city of Maicao.
Mateo’s health is now improving, but his case is not isolated. In La Guajira, children often have the characteristic blondish hair, distended belly, parched skin and disproportionately large head that signal the rampant malnutrition that contributes to high infant mortality rates in the region.
In 2023, 70 children under the age of five died of acute malnutrition in La Guajira, while the departments of El Choco and Cesar recorded 46 and 23 deaths respectively.
The Wayúu people are Colombia’s largest Indigenous group, with a population of 380,460 predominantly based in an area roughly the size of Wales at the northernmost tip of South America. Although their resource-rich environment includes assets such as coal and gas and stunning Caribbean beaches, the lack of food and water available in this arid region has left the Wayúu facing a humanitarian crisis.
More:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2024/may/02/colombias-wayuu-people-live-on-land-rich-in-resources-so-why-are-their-children-dying-of-hunger