Guatemala is facing "one of the worst food security crises," a problem that worsened with the pandemic and climate change, warned the country's Human Rights Attorney, Jordan Rodas,  assuring that 39 children have died from malnutrition so  far this year.

"Guatemala faces a difficult outlook to meet the commitments contained in the Millennium Development Goals (of the UN), in particular Zero Hunger," which seeks to reduce poverty and destruction by 2030, said Rodas in the framework of the World Food Day.

He also regretted that 16% of the almost 17 million Guatemalans suffer from malnutrition, that 18% live in severe food insecurity and 45% in a situation of moderate food insecurity.

According to the UN, almost 50% of children under the age of five suffer from chronic malnutrition in Guatemala, the highest rate in Latin America.

In the first nine months of this year, 39 girls and boys under the age of five died from acute malnutrition, Rodas denounced.

It is “one of the biggest food and nutritional insecurity crises due to the effects caused by covid-19 and climatic phenomena such as storms Eta and Iota” last year, which left dozens of deaths, destruction of subsistence crops and damage to infrastructure, he explained.

Added to this is the central government's lack of political will to guarantee the population's right to food, he lamented.

Thus, the ombudsman recommended to President Alejandro Giammattei that he undertake “an aggressive and efficient policy aimed at guaranteeing the right to food of the population that is food insecure, especially children with acute and chronic malnutrition and families severely affected by the impacts of the pandemic and tropical storms ”.

The coronavirus pandemic left 14,236 dead and 586,318 infected as of Friday.