Germana Carillo The drought at exasperating levels has caused the rivers that are mostly exploited for transport to dry up, leaving children with little food, water and even difficult access to school. Over 420 thousand children have been affected by the record drought in the Amazon region, especially in Brazil, Colombia and Peru
@Reuters
This has turned the situation into a crisis affecting all, after successive years of severe drought in the Amazon rainforest, especially the half a million children made to fight for food and water and attend hardly any schools.
According to a recent report from UNICEF, decreased rainfall and extraordinary heat, exacerbated by climate change, have lowered river levels in the area of the world generally considered the wettest. Rivers shallow enough not to allow boats to travel have left communities stranded.
The impact on children’s lives
This crisis has hit children especially hard, with schools and healthcare facilities becoming either unreachable or completely out of reach.
“For the most remote communities, it’s truly a life-threatening situation,” Antonio Marro of UNICEF says. “Children are getting dengue fever, malaria, and other serious diseases they have no way of reaching medical centers for treatment.”
Deforestation and climate-driven warming, coupled with droughts and weather phenomena like El Niño, have further decimated the rainforest, with areas that once flowed with river systems converted to complete sandbanks.
In October, the rivers Solimões and Rio Negro – two of the biggest Amazonian tributaries – reached their lowest levels since records started in 1902.
State-by-State breakdown
In the Brazilian Amazon alone, more than 1,700 schools and over 760 health facilities have been closed or become inaccessible due to low water levels. In the most recent field assessment led by UNICEF, families in 14 southern Amazon communities in Brazil reported that half of the children could not go to school on account of the drought.
Water levels across the Amazon region of Colombia have dropped by as much as 80%, limiting access to drinking water and food supplies, and forcing the suspension of in-person classes in more than 130 schools. This has meant increased risks related to the recruitment and exploitation of children by non-state armed groups, and a significant spike in respiratory infections, diarrhea, malaria, and acute malnutrition among children under five years of age.
The drought has hit hard in the northeastern region of Loreto in Peru, putting remote communities-mostly already vulnerable Indigenous ones-in danger. More than 50 healthcare centers have become unreachable, and fires-most of them initiated by human beings but joined in their strength by the past two months of drought-are destroying biodiversity in record numbers in 22 of the country’s 26 regions, with a simultaneous increase in the levels of local and regional air pollution.
Steps to take before COP29
UNICEF is appealing for $10 million over the coming months to meet the most urgent needs of drought-stricken communities in Brazil, Colombia, and Peru, including the distribution of water and essential supplies.
Ahead of COP29, UNICEF urges leaders to take the following four key actions for children and youth:
- Ensure the unique and disproportionate impacts of climate change on children are widely acknowledged.
- Commit to scaled-up climate finance for children, including adaptation and loss and damage financing, at a scale appropriate for the crisis;
- Ensure all NDCs address the crisis’s impact on children.
- Give space and a voice to children and young people in climate decision-making at all levels.
