Mexico: Officials take advantage of Rarámuri food shortages, commuity leaders charge
Thursday, January 19th, 2012
((La Jornada photo by Jesús Villaseca))
Many leave food distribution event empty handed and still hungry after traveling miles
[Translation of an article from La Jornada of Mexico City for January 19. See original here. Over the weekend of January 14 and 15, several news sources reported that some 50 members of indigenous Rarámuri communities in the Sierra Tarahumara, or Sierra Madre Occidental, in the northern state of Chihuahua, had committed suicide during the month of December as a result of extreme hunger brought on by the serious drought, which has resulted in the failures of staple food crops like corn and beans.]
By Arturo García Hernández
Creel, Chihuahua, January 18 – Nobody has to starve to death to prove that there is a food emergency in the Sierra Tarahumara. The serious part is that it happens every year and no basic solutions are offered. The worst is that there is always somebody trying to take advantage politically. At least that is what was seen today in the Rarámuri community of San Ignacio de Arareko, adjoining Creel, where Governor César Duarte held the first distribution of food to ease the situation after the scandal brought on by the spreading of the rumor on Twitter and Facebook that there had been mass suicides because of the hunger. (more…)