Guerrero: Victims of storms migrate to survive

Photo @Tlachinollan

The Tlachinollan Mountain Center for Human Rights has reported that, nearly a month after the tropical storms Ingrid and Manuel, more than a thousand residents of the region of the Mountain have abandoned their homes after having lost their maize, beans, banana, and coffee crops, migrating to the north of the country to find work as agricultural day workers.  In a communique, Tlachinollan stressed on 20 October that the Council of Agricultural Workers of the Mountain Region of Guerrero (CJAM) registered between 27 September and 12 October the departure of nearly a thousand persons who left the Mountain to seek out agricultural work in Sinaloa, Sonora, Baja California, Baja California Sur, and Chihuahua, among other states.

During a work meeting, without the presence of ministers from the Intersecretarial Commission for Attention and Support to Agricultural Migrant Workers, the representatives of each institution spoke to the neglect of the agricultural worker population, given the lack of a comprehensive plan of attention, the delay in providing resources on the part of the Secretary of Finance of the Guerrero state government, and the lack of coordination among institutions which make up the Intersecretarial Commission.

The CJAM operates a communal eating-house which operates specifically to attend to the working population before they begin their migration to one of the 16 states which receive migrant workers, given that such a movement can take up to 72 hours.  The CJAM determined that the communal eating-house does not have the means with which to continue operating, given the lack of supplies and lack of attention provided by state governor Ángel Aguirre Rivero.

Para más información:

Damnificados de Guerrero se hacen jornaleros para subsistir (La Jornada, 14 de octubre de 2013)

COMUNICADO | Justifica Comisión Intersecretarial desatención a jornaleros agrícolas afectados por tormentas (Tlachinollan, 15 de octubre de 2013)

COMUNICADO | Inicia éxodo de familias afectadas por las tormentas Ingrid y Manuel (Tlachinollan, 13 de octubre de 2013)

Para más información de SIPAZ:

Guerrero: The situation continues to be dramatic for storm victims in Guerrero (4 October 2013)

Guerrero: Deaths and victims of tropical storm Manuel (4 October 2013)