Authorities in the area known as “el Trifinio”, where the borders of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras converge, declared an “alert” on Friday to prevent nearly 140,000 residents from falling into “famine” due to a drought.
“We entered into an alert because we must prevent the crisis situation” due to lack of food that the inhabitants live “I went into famine due to drought due to climate change”the director told reporters for Hondurasof the Trifinio Plan, Jorge Aguilar.
He Plan Trifinio was created in 1997 within the framework of the Central American Integration System (SICA) to develop this 7,584 km² area that has more than one million inhabitants between the three countries, with 62% of households living in poverty.
The trinational executive secretary of the Planthe Honduran Liseth Hernández, said at a press conference that “around 140,000 people are in food crisis at different stages”Specially in Guatemala y Honduraswhat “It must not go to famine”.
He explained that the drought prevents the crops that are sown in May and those that begin in October, when the inhabitants are running out of food reserves.
“We have no data that we are in phase […] of famine, that someone has died because they did not eat, we do not have that information and we hope not to have it “Hernandez advocated.
He regretted that the recurring climatic phenomena have decreased the areas of agricultural crops in the area, which has aggravated food production, together with the increase in the cost of inputs.
In response, to help the population, he said that the authorities of the three countries will focus on “produce food in a short time” as “family or community gardens”, “irrigation systems in different modalities”, “harvesters of water”, “drought adaptable crops” y “community nurseries”.