LA GUAJIRA, COLOMBIA — In Colombia’s desert peninsula of La Guajira, a humanitarian crisis has been neglected for years. Members of Colombia’s largest indigenous group, the Wayuu, as well as the Afro community, are slowly dying because of a lack of food and water.
The dire situation is due to years of drought and the Colombian government’s privatization of the region’s water for coal mining and industrial agriculture.
Wayuu leaders say at least 12,000 indigenous children under the age of 5 have died since 2012.
Indigenous leaders presented a report to the United Nations denouncing human rights violations on their ancestral land and asking for recognition.
This video was published by IRIN News on September 6, 2016. Click here to watch it.
Kamilia Lahrichi was a 2016 Adelante Latin America Reporting Fellow with the International Women’s Media Foundation.
