Hurricane Eta Leaves Millions in Central America Needing Urgent Food Assistance

ROME – Millions of people in Central America urgently need food assistance in the wake of Hurricane Eta, one of the worst storms in decades, as fears grow of another storm brewing in the coming days.

Heavy rains, high winds, deadly landslides and floods unleashed by Eta after making landfall in Nicaragua earlier this month killed dozens of people, destroyed infrastructure and hurt rural livelihoods along its path in Central America, including in Belize, Guatemala and Honduras.

“Eta arrived at the worst time, making life harder for millions of people already hard hit by years of erratic weather and the socioeconomic crisis COVID-19 caused. We are also concerned that more heavy rain and flooding can destroy the upcoming harvest subsistence farmers depend on to survive,” said Miguel Barreto, Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean.

Eta was the 28th hurricane in an already record-setting season. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warns that there is a high chance another storm will form in the coming days.

The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) used internal resources to preposition food, scale up current operations focused on people affected by COVID-19, and mobilize teams to respond to the emergency in the most affected areas in Central America.

The hurricane compounds hunger already deepened by the coronavirus. Before the pandemic, the Dry Corridor of Central America (El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua) saw five years of prolonged drought and failed crops due to erratic weather patterns, which left smallholder farmers, day laborers and their families’ food insecure.

The U.N. World Food Programme predicts the number of people with severe food insecurity in the Dry Corridor could increase from more than 1.6 million in 2019 to close to 3 million in 2020, due to the socioeconomic fallout of COVID-19.

“To prevent the situation from becoming a larger humanitarian crisis, the U.N. World Food Programme calls for increased support from donors,” said Barreto.

An initial assessment indicates that our immediate funding needs to support the most vulnerable people are approximately  $13.2 million. This figure is expected to increase over the next few weeks as the extent of Eta’s impact becomes clearer.

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Photos available here

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The United Nations World Food Programme is the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. We are the world’s largest humanitarian organization, saving lives in emergencies and using food assistance to build a pathway to peace, stability and prosperity for people recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change. | Follow us on Twitter @WFPUSA and @wfp_media

For more information, contact:

• Shaza Moghraby, WFP/New York, Shada.Moghraby@wfp.org, Mob. + 1 929 289 9867
• Steve Taravella, WFP/ Washington, Steve.Taravella@wfp.org, Mob.  +1 202 770 5993