Petro governs from La Guajira, hit by lack of water and malnutrition

Colombian President Gustavo Petro is ruling this week from the department of La Guajira, in the northernmost part of the country, a desert region that for years has accumulated the highest numbers of malnutrition and extreme poverty in the nation.

With the presence of the president, advances are expected for this population that has been affected by malnutrition in children under five, lack of access to drinking water and other problems of inequality. According to the National Institute of Health, La Guajira is the region with the most cases of deaths from child malnutrition in the country, with 39 cases in 2023.

The president plans to declare an economic and social emergency in that department, a measure that allows him to issue decrees without having to go through the legislature to be approved.

Upon his arrival in La Guajira, Petro said that his visit focuses his attention on a measure that seeks to comply with a Constitutional Court ruling that ordered in 2017 the special protection of the rights to water, health and food for the communities in the area. This is a measure of the Colombian high court that orders special attention and guarantee of access to water, health and food for the Wayúu indigenous peoples, who lack aqueducts and have the highest poverty indicators in the country.

The director of the Food Bank of La Guajira, Rebeca Badillo, celebrated the arrival of Petro given the possibility of “transforming” the indicators of poverty and malnutrition in minors.

“What we need is for the president to make sure that the resources go, where they have to go, to those low-income communities, to those indigenous communities where their children are dying, where to date 39 children have orchards due to malnutrition. . So it is necessary that they take measures so that the resources go in a timely manner so that the breath of the children reaches them,” Badillo told the VOA.

Water, one of the chronic problems in La Guajira

In the northern zone of the department of La Guajira, inhabited mostly by Wayúu indigenous people, a people who have inhabited the desert landscape for centuries, the population does not have access to a source of drinking water, a situation that is worsened in rural areas where the 88 % of communities do not have access to basic sanitation, according to figures from the Superintendence of Residential Public Services.

Petro stated that “the lack of water in the department is dramatic. There is more demand for water than what is offered, children die due to lack or poor quality of drinking water in La Guajira”.

The president assured that the measures to be taken to deal with the water problem are aimed at “reversing” this situation.

Camilo Prieto, professor of climate change and health at the Javeriana University, told the VOA that he hopes that with Petro’s visit “forceful actions” will be carried out to solve the water problem.

“Unfortunately, the distribution system that exists in La Guajira for water depends on the management of some tank truck companies that charge exorbitant amounts for the distribution of water. So it is important that a policy of deep wells can be applied and that this distribution is carried out by the communities themselves, using the water routes that have been in operation for decades and that have been designed by the same towns with the support of donkeys perfectly adapted to the territory. ”, he mentioned.

The president visited various municipalities in Alta Guajira, where the greatest problems of access to drinking water are present, where he spoke with communities about environmental projects in a department that has the largest open-pit coal mine in Latin America.

Regarding this situation, Prieto explained to the VOA that the problem due to the lack of water in La Guajira “is not due solely to the mining projects that are being developed in the region”

“Evidence has shown us that the great scarcity of water is not only due to mining projects, but, on the one hand, there are factors such as the desert ecosystem of the place. It is also one of the areas in Latin America with the highest desertification rates, which shows that it is very possible that by the end of the century, especially the Alta Guajira area, they will be uninhabitable areas”, he said.

Coal mining activities consume water and “can generate water stress,” added the expert, although “there are other ecological, climatic and social conditions that have prevented people from effectively accessing basic sanitation.”

This visit by Petro could change the direction of how the policy of the different governments has been handled towards the “most forgotten” Colombia. Historically, the government has been run with “excessive” centralism from Bogotá, said Juan Fernando Contreras, a political analyst and university professor.

“The departments have always complained about the excessive centralism that the country has” and the initiative to take the central government to other regions outside the capital “is always well received and especially in a region like La Guajira, which has many social problems Contreras added.

EXPLAIN WHAT YOU MEAN BY THAT of “it has been a claim of all governments” and “The departments have always complained about the excessive centralism that the country has”

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