Colombia’s Wayúu people live on land rich in resources. So why are their children dying of hunger? | Colombia
Iin the early hours of the morning, an ambulance transports Rosa Epiieu and her nine-month-old son Mateo from Jumana, an indigenous Wayu community in La Guajira, Colombia, at a hospital in the nearby town of Manaure. There, a doctor tells Epieius that her son is suffering from malnutrition.
For 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 blond hair, bloated bellies, withered skin and disproportionately large heads that signal the widespread malnutrition that contributes to the region’s high child mortality rates.
In 2023, 70 children under five died of acute malnutrition in La Guajirawhile the departments of El Choco and Cesar recorded 46 and 23 deaths, respectively.
The Wayúu people are the largest indigenous group in Colombia, with population of 380,460 people mostly 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 beachesthe lack of food and water in this arid region has put the Wayúu on the brink of a humanitarian crisis.
The region challenging economic situation exacerbates the problem. Formal job opportunities are scarce in La Guajira, and agriculture is limited by water scarcity. Wayúu communities rely on traditional weaving, goat herding and wood gathering to provide sustenance for their families, but these activities often do not cover the families’ living expenses.
Alba Epieyu, 44, sometimes walks to Manaure from her community, Poloshi, early in the morning to avoid the hot sun and sell backpacks (handbags) she weaves. She gets 20,000 Colombian pesos per bag (about £4), but it takes days to weave them, and the profit from selling them only buys enough food for a day or two.
“We make a living doing mochilas, but buyers don’t want to pay a fair price. We still have to give them away because we are hungry and I have to feed my children,” says Epieyu in Vayuunaiki, the language of the Wayúu communities, while standing by the sand road. Many Wayúu people do not speak Spanish and are illiterate, adding further barriers to their economic activities.
This poverty-induced food insecurity often has the greatest impact on children. Noreli Uriana, the daughter of Alba Epiieu, lost her son three days after his birth.
In the family cemetery, near the grave of Uriana’s child, two more cement blocks guard the mortal remains of two brothers who died in 2022 and 2023. One of them was also a newborn. In this cemetery, out of 21 graves, five are children’s.
In La Guajira, hunger is closely related to water scarcity. As people often say in this region: “In La Guajira, water is gold.” And it is in short supply.
On the same sandy road where Epieyu stood, people from at least five other communities are waiting to receive water that is being delivered by truck. The supply is irregular; today a water truck passes without stopping. On the way back, the driver decides to stop, but fills only half of the 500 liter tank.
This half-full tank is designed to supply a family of 12 World Health Organization, 20 liters per person per day is the minimum safe amount of water for drinking and cooking. The family is forced to replenish their meager supplies as there is no certainty when the truck will return to provide more.
The government’s water program says trucks must deliver to families every two weeks. However, the water distribution company serving the Manaure region admits that it cannot meet the minimum water supply to all municipalities. “Community leaders come to ask for water distribution. Since we have capacity, we send the truck. But in reality we cannot meet the demand. There are more than 1,300 communities,” says Addis Ruiz, manager of Triple A, Manaure’s water company.
Even when the trucks return on schedule, many communities don’t have reservoirs to store the water for that long. The Wayúu people often rely on man-made ponds that collect rainwater or artisanal wells, where the water is often unsafe for consumption because animals contaminate it.
Such pollution is a problem for a community a few miles from Alba Epiieu’s home, where about 20 people gather at an artisanal well, collecting the muddy water for drinking and cooking.
They walked with their animals to the well to quench their thirst and load their donkeys to return home. A collection of logs covers the water and provides a precarious platform to access the well. Last year, a community member died after falling into the water.
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In 2017, the Constitutional Court of Colombia managed that the state must guarantee basic rights such as water, food and health for Wayúu children. The challenges facing these communities, however, remain unresolved, according to reports by the Ombudsman’s office from 2022 and 2023.
In November 2023, the Comptroller General’s investigation fiscal irregularities were discovered and revealed that at least 95 of the 265 children had died of malnutrition in La Guajira between 2018 and 2022 were part of protection programs managed by the Colombian Institute of Family Welfare (ICBF) of the Ministry of Social Development. It found that the organization had failed to identify malnourished children who were at risk of death.
Astrid Cáceres Cárdenas, director of the institute since March 2023, said the ICBF plans to take legal action against five organizations that offer services to the institute. She also admitted that the institution “is not effective in the face of child malnutritionas the comptroller said in his 2018-2022 report.
Although La Guajira was in the heart of the leftist president The administration of Gustavo Petro – the government transferred his entire cabinet to the department for one week towards the end of his first year in office – this attempt at crisis management did not work.
The Colombian Secretary of Transparency identified La Guajira as the fourth department most exposed to corruption in the state.
Allegations of corruption persist in the region, as in the case of a criminal complaint filed against a number of people associated with contract for the purchase of 40 water carriers.
The allegations led to the resignation of the director of the National Disaster Risk Management Unit (UNGRD), Olmedo Lopez. He said in his resignation letter that his “lack of experience” as a public manager may have hindered his stewardship, but denied any allegations of corruption.
In Uribia, 20 km inland from Manaure, the trucks are now stranded at a military base, without transit insurance. Added to this, the new director of UNGRD, Carlos Carrillo said in an interview that this type of vehicle was unsuitable for the region, and in any case the local aqueducts did not have enough water to supply them.
A health brigade program covering remote villages has also recently suspended operations despite the fact that during one of their last visits to the community of Karavichon – two hours from Maicao – doctors said they had identified two new cases at risk of malnutrition . According to Gina Paneflek, coordinator in the health territorial teams, the restart of the health brigades is coming, but the exact date remains unknown.
“These people [the health brigade] he won’t be back for a long time,” says Arturo González, a member of the Caravichón community, whispering as children and adults pass him to be weighed, measured and given medicine. He’s right: a mother of a two-year-old who can’t walk and who believes his condition is due to malnutrition was told a team would come once a week to see at-risk children. The families are still awaiting the brigade’s visit. According to community members, in four years about 10 children died of malnutrition.
These families go to Maicao for food once a month. Transportation costs them about 40,000 pesos and they will be charged the same amount again to see a doctor.
In La Guajira, most of the food programs, including those for school-age children, pregnant mothers, newborns and malnourished children, have not helped or are already irregular, another alleged failure of the ICBF condemned by the comptroller’s office.
According to Emilie Alarcón, director of indigenous affairs for Manaure, this is due to irregularities found in ICBF contracts. The current director of the institute admitted the irregularities in the begining of March. “They found many companies with the same address, the same name and the same purpose. Also, they received full payment without fulfilling the contract,” she says.
The Guardian contacted the ICBF to ask about the future of the food programs but did not receive a response.
The residents of La Guajira feel neglected. “There is nothing to eat in my house. We are starving,” says 10-year-old Clara Epiyu after returning from picking wild cactus fruit near her home in Jumana. She did not get the school meal she was entitled to that day. “At least dogs look for food and find it, but what about us?”
