By Daniel Borunda
EL PASO TIMES
Mexican authorities said food and other assistance has started arriving in indigenous communities facing hunger in the Sierra Tarahumara in southwestern Chihuahua.
About 20,000 food packets have already been distributed in some of the most vulnerable communities, and more supplies are en route, Mexico’s federal Social Development department said Tuesday.
Food drives have taken place in El Paso, Juárez and across Mexico in response to news reports in recent weeks about a hunger crisis caused by a drought in the Sierra Tarahumara.
Local organizers are expected to travel to Chihuahua City on Feb. 7 and meet with other groups in Mexico. From there, they will travel together to the sierra.
Chihuahua state officials have called the situation the area’s worst drought in 70 years.
Officials of the Chihuahua State Commission on Human Rights and the National Commission of Human Rights said on Monday that workers sent to the mountains found a “delicate situation” affecting more than 7,000 Raramuri communities unable to produce enough food because of the drought.
In isolated indigenous communities, human-rights workers found a lack of food and reconfirmed there had been no mass suicides due to hunger, officials said.
“The support is being delivered in a punctual manner, but communities of less than 100 inhabitants, where only a few families reside and located up to six and eight hours away on foot, have fallen behind,” José Luis Armendáriz González, president of the Chihuahua human rights commission, said in a statement.
“There should be a greater effort on the part of government authorities to include them (the isolated communities) in assistance programs,” Armendáriz said.