Money, Economics, Politics,  Peru's Andes Mountains

Citizen Journalists Respond to Cold Deaths in Andes

I met this boy last September in Pucarumi, an area where children are currently dying of extreme cold. His parents scrape out a living harvesting potatoes and herding llamas. (photo c. Barbara Drake 2008)

Juan Arellano recently posted an excellent update on the continuing deaths of children due to extreme cold in the Andes and how reporters, bloggers and citizen journalists are responding to the humanitarian crisis. (See “Siguen las muertes por frío en Puno” in Spanish and the story in English on Global Voices Online.)

Writing in his Spanish-language blog Globalizado, Arellano (who also writes for Global Voices Online) notes that the official death toll of people in the area, most of them children under 5, is now up to 433, according to RPP. Public outrage at these largely preventable deaths has been ignited by an ATV news segment, posted on YouTube June 2, that shows an Andean couple in Juliaca watching helplessly as their small child dies of cold-induced respiratory illness in a local hospital:

A Child Dies in Puno Hospital, YouTube video (Warning: This heartbreaking video graphically shows the child suffering from lack of medical care in the hospital, as well as the father’s anguished response at identifying his baby’s dead body. In the hospital, the child is obviously dying of pneumonia, and the nurses don’t even put an oxygen mask on him.)

Some viewers left comments on YouTube accusing the journalists who filmed the segment of exploiting the child’s death to promote ratings, but another viewer, speaking on behalf of journalists, defended the video:

“In all honesty, journalists are not doctors or lawyers … [our role is] just to inform … it is all we can do. We are as outraged as the rest of the world. Our power goes beyond that of a reality show … [We are showing] what the raw truth is, hoping that it will reveal what is happening and who it can and should do something about it, do it!”

I was very interested in this exchange because I’ve found that blogging about humanitarian issues in Peru often puts me in a similar situation. Readers frequently expect me to respond as an activist and do something about a problem, or look to me for authoritative advice on how to help. I’m often overwhelmed by these requests, since the problems (hunger, lead poisoning, loss of glaciers, genocide) are immense and Peru’s institutions are typically unable to coordinate even a rudimentary relief effort to stem this or that crisis. Whatever help I’ve been able to offer victims has been immediate and local — handing out food to families, paying for a friend in the Andes to visit a doctor, etc. Significantly, readers never expect me to intervene in problems that I report on for U.S. newspapers.

While Peru’s mainstream media provides some coverage on what is happening in the Andes, it’s fallen to writers in the blogosphere to analyze what caused the crisis and why it’s accelerating.

Some of the key points that Peruvian bloggers are bringing up, notes Arellano:

  • The health crisis in the Andes is compounded by deliberate mismanagement of aid to the affected regions. (See Bobstarz’s post in Caviar de Cianuro — Cyanide Caviar — on the black-market sale of UN rice intended for the people of Puno);
  • Donations of clothing, food and medicine are only a “patch,” observes Francisco Canaza of Apuntes Peruanos.“The real problem is the neglect of the state to those remote areas.” (I agree wholeheartedly.) Canaza also notes that living in the highlands requires the body to burn higher amounts of calories and that lack of adequate nutrition is at the root of many Andean people’s vulnerability to cold snaps. (Likewise, I concur.);
  • Some effects of globalization are making people in the puna more vulnerable to hunger and climate shifts, notes columnist Rafo Leon. Traditional wool clothing is being replaced by cheap synthetics, and new houses are being built of modern materials that are not as warm as traditional adobe. (I’m not sure I agree that these substitutions are at the root of the problem, but they may intensify its effects.)

I also was honored that Arellano quoted from my July 16 post (“250 Children Dead of Cold in Andes”) on the lack of response from Peru’s Red Cross, an agency that should be on the scene and administering to communities in peril. Peru is on the frontlines of climate change and has between 40 and 49% of its population below the poverty line. It is a crime that the country does not have a functioning, let alone robust, Red Cross to mitigate and respond to disasters. It is now time for that situation to change.

Check out Arellano’s post, which includes my photograph of two girls from Pucarumi (used with my permission). As I said in “Two Sisters from Pucarumi, Dead from Andean Cold Spell?” I cannot think back to my September ’08 trip to the Ausangate region without wondering about the lovely children I met and photographed there. At least six children have died in the towns of Upis, Pacchanta and Pucarumias a result of the cold, my trekking guide tells me, and I suspect more have perished as well. I imagine their smiling, cold-chapped faces and think about the thin sweaters they wore, the rubber-tire sandals on their feet, and my heart aches.

On my trip to Pucarumi in September, we handed out rice, noodles and fruit wherever we went. My Quechua-language translator gave away her sweater to a 13-year-old boy whom I knew from 2006, when El Fotografo and I first visited Qoyllur Rit’i. (The boy’s father was one of our arrieros.) The boy crept up to our campsite one morning and confessed that he and his mother were starving, so we loaded up three bags of food and carried them to his mother’s house an hour’s walk away. The mother received the food gratefully, then it emerged that she was suffering from intolerable lower-back pain, so by the end of all this, we were arranging to bring her to a doctor in Cusco.

These are the things I think of when I read the news reports on deaths in the highlands — the humble, hard-working people who live at such a remove from the “civilized” world and who can be helped at not that much cost, if only there are some of us willing to climb the mountain paths and meet them halfway.

info on photo at top: I met this boy last September in Pucarumi, an impoverished area where children are currently dying of extreme cold. His parents scrape out a living harvesting potatoes and herding llamas. (photo c. Barbara Drake 2008)

I am an American writer who lived in Lima for seven years (2007-2014), where I covered Andean traditions, melting glaciers and daily life in the capital for Miami Herald, MSNBC and Huffington Post. I now live and work in northern Florida where I champion climate change advocacy and compassionate, affordable eldercare.

14 Comments

  • Pico

    Dear Barb,

    Today I cried thinking about my beloved country, not because I miss it dearly, but because some of the things you mention on your post. I have not had the courage to see the video but I just can imagine the wrenching feeling of that father.

    I often tell people that Peru is a wonderful place to go to, many times forgetting some of the ugly aspects. It is maddening to think about the ineptitude of the agencies that are supposed to care for the less fortunate and in need. The total abandonment of the poorest rural areas and worst yet, the total lack of a national consciousness to demand that these type of things should not take place in a country that wants to participate in the global society.

    There is a cancer in all of our organizations, a bureaucracy where most cannot see beyond the tip of their noses, but that is all that they care about. I too have seen parents bring their ill children to the emergency room only to be met with indifference, and not even the child’s death nor the parent’s pain seem to move them, and instead these individuals seem bothered by the whole situation.

    I am not saying they are all like that. There are indeed some very compassionate, caring people but not enough of them.

    Thank you Barb for caring, for bringing to light these things that many Peruvians have no knowledge of or do not want to. Thank you for doing more for my country than I ever did.

    Pico

  • Barb

    Dear Pico,
    You’re welcome.
    I agree that it is very puzzling, “the total abandonment of the poorest rural areas and worst yet, the total lack of a national consciousness to demand that these type of things should not take place in a country that wants to participate in the global society.” Peru must develop a more institutional compassion for the poor and vulnerable (institutional meaning that programs are enacted and carried out).

    And, yes, sadly, horrifically, bureaucrats can be so callous that the mind boggles. Some of the worst instances of this happen in the provinces, where people who hold positions of power steal resources that should be going to their constituents. This is a huge problem.

    For all the callousness that I’ve seen, I’ve also witnessed many Peruvians — including well off Peruvians — who are deeply distressed about these abuses and do what they can to help. El Fotografo has two cousins who raise money for communities in the Andes and fly there twice a year to deliver goods. It’s just something they do because they want to help; you never see their names in the newspaper or anything.

    And Pico — sharing your insights about Peru does help your country and your fellow Peruvians. I believe that strongly. Thanks for your honesty.:)

  • Daniel

    I am really sad too about this people who suffer from cold in the Andes. A lot of help has been given, and certainly temperatures there can be very low.

    But, Pico, this type of problems are not unique to Peru.

  • Camila

    Every year it’s the same. It’s so sad. It’s great you are caring and reporting it in your personal blog. I think even our smallest actions make an impact in the life of others.

    Pico, I hear you. It’s very sad rural areas have to endure this type of second citizenship. It’s so terribly unfair.

  • Ward Welvaert

    On Friday I read in the local newspaper that there have been 25 new fatalities in the past month. Of those 25, 15 happened OUTSIDE of a hospital or clinic.

    It is really a failure of Peruvian society, lack of organized behavior, a cancer of bureaucracy and practically criminal negligence on the part of the academic and political leaders who fail to supply enough doctors.

    I’ve heard time and again my students complain that they studied their butts of to get into medical school at UNSAAC, only to be told out of 800+ applicants only 10 are accepted each year. Doctors complain they have to work 30 hr shifts but there’s no money to hire more doctors.

  • Barb

    Thanks, Ward, for the information on new deaths and for sharing your students’ complaints about not being admitted to medical schools. Only 10 students accepted each year at UNSAAC? What a pitiful matriculation rate.

    Yes, Peru needs more doctors and more trained medical personnel. This is an unmet need.
    I’ve been looking more into the humanitarian crisis in the Andes, and it seems that a sizeable amount of food, clothing and blankets has been donated, and at least half of these donations have reached people in the puna. (I’m looking at reports from Caritas and Defensa Civil).

    Where there’s a huge gap is the medical side of things. In the dept. of Puno, there have been 71,000 people hospitalized w respiratory ailments in the last three months. I don’t think the medical centers there are equipped or staffed to deal with that kind of patient influx.

    In other countries, the Red Cross would be setting up emergency medical tents in affected zones to assist with dr care, administering of medicines, etc. But Peru’s Red Cross is a nonfunctional entity (as I’ve said previously) and so the emergency medical care that is needed isn’t being provided.

    Ward, have you heard of any groups providing emergency medical care in the dept of Cusco?

  • Ward Welvaert

    I haven’t heard of any relief efforts here in Cusco – but I don’t stay up on local news that well.

    I can say the main Seguro hospital in Cusco appears by no means overcrowded and by my observations healthcare in Cusco is definitely adequate. The challenge is to extend healthcare to the rural areas and the poorer cities in Puno.

    Also, as for relief efforts, you might be surprised how much donated stuff you’ll find for sale at the local markets. Commerce here in the Southern Andes is full of black-market types, smuggling from Tacna, bribes for police and aduanas, etc. There are several local markets in Cusco that appear to be full of stolen or otherwise compromised goods, but that’s just the way things are in these parts.

  • Danielito

    I know a lot of people in Lima and from other places in the country where they have gathered independently to help people in Puno.

    And from what I have been told, it is mainly people from small Aymaran communities the ones who need help. Other people seem to have been well prepared for cold temperatures, since after all, this happens every year.

    I personally think the problem lies on culture issues mainly from small Aymaran communities.

  • Barb

    Yes, Ward, there has been an ongoing problem in Peru with donations making their way to the black market. As I mention in my earlier post, 3 truckloads of UN rice that were supposed to go to Puno were driven instead to Ica, where they ended up on the black market. The UN has asked the trucking company to return the rice.

    These “hijackings” are very detrimental to all of Peru because they scare off people (Peruvian and foreigners) from contributing to relief efforts. The government needs to prosecute these cases aggressively to set an example. Perhaps it needs to make it a more serious crime.

  • Barb

    Readers, check out Miguel’s thoughtful article on the issue of vaccination and why this element is crucial to preventing pneumonia deaths in the Andes.

    I’m guilty of using the phrase “cold deaths” when I means deaths by pneumonia. I used that shorthand to save space in headlines and in Tweeting about the subject.

    It is criminal that the regional government of Puno was gien more than 23,000 doses of vaccine but only innoculated 243 people. And this campaign of innoculating people during the winter season is nonsense, as you say. The vaccines need to be administered earlier.

    Right now, things are in a full blown medical crisis in the high Andes. We now need drs and emergency medical centers set up in rural areas. Blankets might help a well person, but with the tens of thousands already suffering from respiratory disease, that won’t be enough.