Uruguay: Warnings About Child Victims of Drug Trafficking
Cocaine Seized by the Uruguayan Authorities, Oct 2024 Photo: @OnDemand_News
October 15, 2024 Hour: 5:56 pm
Several candidates for the 27 October elections expressed dismay at the tragic event, and repeated campaign promises regarding public safety.
On Tuesday, official sources spoke about the death of a baby in the capital’s Cerro Norte neighborhood, which highlighted the dangers to children from the scourge of drug trafficking in Uruguay.
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The infant was shot several times, as was his mother, who was hospitalized in serious condition, during an armed confrontation between gangs fighting over drug trafficking.
Several candidates for the 27 October elections expressed dismay at the tragic event, and repeated campaign promises regarding public safety.
For its part, the Caras y Caretas newspaper today recalled statements made by Dr. Alvaro Galiana, director of the Pereira Rosell pediatric hospital, on the increase in the number of children arriving at the hospital with gunshot wounds.
‘It is something that worries us a lot. In addition, he indicated that it requires the availability of a surgical block to immediately attend to a patient who in general is a ‘serious child’, the doctor declared last February when violence also had an impact on infants.
Before, two or three cases of children attacked with bullets in a year were exceptional, and today we always have one child shot every month,’ he said at the time.
The publication reports on statistics from the Ministry of Health, which show that 217 children between the ages of zero and 14 were shot between 2014 and 2023.
This figure is higher than the one presented in May by the Ministry of Interior, which reported 176 children shot in the same period.
Autor: OSG
Fuente: EFE