The following excerpt is from an April 9, 2010 article published by the UN News Centre. To read the article in its entirety, please click here.
9 April 2010 –
More than a month after the United Nations and its aid partners appealed for $34 million to respond to the food crisis in Guatemala, less than 10 per cent of that amount has been received, prompting UN officials to express concern today over the plight of the estimated 680,000 people in need.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, Elisabeth Byrs, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) told reporters in Geneva.
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.
But so far only $2.9 million has been received in the appeal, according to OCHA.
The rise in acute malnutrition, including clinical cases of kwashiorkor and marasmus, has hit the so-called ‘dry corridor’ in the east and centre of Guatemala particularly hard…
Click here to read the rest of the article, or here to read more about the 2009/10 Food Crisis.
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