Colombia: Protests Resume in Bogota Over Lack of Food Aid

Bogota's residents on Wednesday demanded local authorities provide food aid to overcome the quarantine economic distress. 

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The residents of the Kennedy and Ciudad Boliva neighborhoods said they have received no income due to the lockdown and other precautionary measures. The  residents said they cannot afford food, medicines, and rent. 

Bogota’s major Claudia Lopez pledged in late April that her office would extend 80,000 coupons for the most affected families. Given the situation, Lopez faults Ivan Duque’s government for the delay.

The mayor recently stated that Ciudad Bolivar‘s residents received the largest number of aid packages, but she recognized those supplies were not enough, given the area’s extreme poverty.

There are 252 neighborhoods concentrated there. In 2017, 733,859 inhabitants lived in the area, of which 391,337 received assistance through the System for the Identification of Potential Beneficiaries of Social Programs (Sisben).

Ciudad Bolivar’s unemployment rate is 49.3 percent, the highest among all Bogota’s areas. Almost half of the inhabitants live on what they earn daily through informal sales.

On Wednesday night, they gathered in Corabastos Square to protest against major food selling restrictions.

Up to late May, Bogota’s health authorities confirmed over 600 Covid-19 cases in Ciudad Bolivar.
 
As of Wednesday morning, Colombia's health authorities reported 33,354 Covid-19 cases, 1,045 deaths, and 12,288 recoveries from the virus.