Child Malnutrition Deaths Triple in Colombia's Guajira

Colombia's government has formally admitted that 56 Indigenous children have died since the beginning of 2016 in the department of Guajira, where human rights groups and Indigenous leaders have warned about the potential extinction of their community.

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“It's is very sad to have to update this record almost every day,” Health Minister Stevenson Marulanda said Wednesday at a press conference, announcing that three more Wayuu children had died in recent days.

There were 19 reported child deaths from malnutrition in 2015.

In the last decade, a reported 4,770 Indigenous children have died from hunger in La Guajira. Another report found that up to 15,000 children in Guajira currently suffer from malnutrition.

Jorge Enrique Velez, governor of La Guajira, a department bordering Venezuela, said during the press conference that the drought that hit the area in the past three years partly explained the surge of deaths.

However, La Guajira has seen a growing number of mining projects that have depleted local water sources. Human rights defenders have denounced the projects, saying the salty waters found in Guajira are not even suitable for goats.

In addition, the Wayuu community has lost valuable land, as well as access to the Rancheria River, as a result of expanded mining in the area.

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In Dec. 2015, after Indigenous leaders filed a lawsuit against the government for neglect, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights requested the state adopt urgent measures to address the crisis, saying the high levels of child mortality were putting the survival of the group as a whole in danger.

The commission urged the government to address the lack of fresh water services to the community and to guarantee residents the availability and access to health services with an integral and culturally appropriate approach.

The Wayuus' legal adviser, Javier Rojas, has also accused government officials of stealing funds earmarked for the Indigenous community and funneling them into campaign war chests.

The problem of malnutrition is not confined to Guajira but found across poorer, rural, Indigenous communities in Colombia.