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News > Latin America

Almost 3 Million Affected by Drought in Central America

  • Those hardest hit by drought have been rural communities, particularly families who depend on subsistence farming.

    Those hardest hit by drought have been rural communities, particularly families who depend on subsistence farming. | Photo: Reuters

Published 15 January 2016
Opinion

The United Nations will begin to roll out its Humanitarian Response Plan to help people in drastic need of food, health care, water and sanitation.

Over 2.8 million people have been drastically affected by drought in the Central American corridor of Honduras and Guatemala and are in drastic need of humanitarian aid, the United Nations reported Friday.

The U.N. said they will begin to roll out their Humanitarian Response Plan that will work with the governments of the two nations through its Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs or OCHA.

IN DEPTH: Latin America’s Fight for a Just Climate Solution

According to OCHA, people urgently “need food assistance, health care, water and sanitation, nutrition, recovery of livelihoods and capacity building to address these phenomena.”

This is the second year in a row that Central America has experienced major drought and crop losses. Last year's drought caused several governments in the region to declare a state of emergency for the catastrophic effects the weather left on their countries' food production abilities.

The United Nations took notice of the drought this year, saying insufficient and erratic rainfall has resulted in the loss of staple grain crops and the death of thousands of cattle in Honduras and Guatemala, putting the livelihoods of thousands of people at risk.

The areas hardest hit by the drought are rural communities and particularly families who depend on subsistence farming.

RELATED: El Nino Set to Peak in Latin America in First Quarter of 2016

According to specialists, the drought is caused by El Nino—a weather phenomenon induced by rising sea levels and warm currents entering the Pacific Ocean causing drastic changes in weather patterns.

The effects of El Nino are expected to get worse over the next months in the region, and affect an area that extends from Guatemala all the way through to Costa Rica.

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