A drought in Central America is turning into a humanitarian crisis for nearly two-and-a-half million people in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OHCA) said Friday. OCHA's Jens Laerke told reporters in Geneva that most of the people affected are subsistence farmers, farm laborers, and low-income families. Up to 75 percent of maize and bean crop in Honduras and Guatemala has been lost and thousands of cattle have died. Food security is expected to get worse in the coming months as families finish their food stocks. The Guatemalan government declared a state of public calamity in 16 departments in August and by October, 30,000 families had finished their food stocks. Laerke said that those families are in deep distress today. In El Salvador, the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources had reported that the country was experiencing its worst drought since 1977. Humanitarian Country Teams had drafted Emergency Response Plans in Honduras and Guatemala to support the governments in dealing with the emergency and U.N. agencies were also supporting the government in El Salvador.
