More than a month after the United Nations and its aid partners appealed for $34 million ( ca. 190 mio. d. kr.) to respond to the food crisis in Guatemala, less than 10 per cent of that amount has been received.
UN officials are concerned over the plight of the estimated 680,000 people in need, writes UN News.
Guatemala has been hit by a prolonged drought, one of the worst in the country in three decades, resulting in severe food shortages that have exacerbated the country’s chronic malnutrition problem.
An estimated 43 per cent of Guatemalan children below the age of five suffer from chronic malnutrition, one of the worst rates in the world.
The effects of the drought have been made worse by rising food prices, a decrease in remittances because of the global financial crisis, cost increases for agricultural items, such as fertilizer and pesticides, and a decrease in job opportunities.
