• The Look of Correspondent Misery and 'crack' in the largest city in the West

For a long time now, the center of Buenos Aires has shown sordid and hopeless edges, with a growing combination of marginality and people evicted by the economic crisis. But the combination of events of recent days was a blow to Argentines: in the same hours in which it was reported that almost 40 percent of the country's inhabitants are poor, a three-month-old baby died in the street at the doors of the Casa Rosada itself.

"A baby was found dead at the very door of the Casa Rosada. He lived on the street, with his family. His parents alerted the police. Poverty kills and kills children. Half of Argentine children are poor, an inhuman percentage of them live in indigence," said columnist Miguel Wiñazki in "Clarín."

The death of the three-month-old baby came hours after the National Institute of Statistics and Census (Indec) revealed that 39.2 percent of those living in Argentina are poor, with 8.1 percent indigent. The figures hit the mood of the population and were the subject of criticism and laments from the media in the midst of a rarefied climate: Latin America's third largest economy is heading for a presidential election with primaries in August and amid inflation that exceeds 100 percent annually. The peso depreciates steadily and sends more and more citizens into poverty.

"Around the Plaza de Mayo, those who walk through it know it, dozens of people live in the streets," Wiñazki said. "That didn't happen in general before 2001 (the year of the great crisis). They are grouped under the nook and cranny of Paseo Colón, or on the steps of the Cathedral, and so they spend their days and nights before everyone's eyes, but invisible at the same time, because poverty is already a 'normal' scene. They are usually covered with black cellophane, on waste mattresses or on the floor to dry. "

The incident occurred at 5.15 in the morning, meters from the Government House and in the Plaza de Mayo, where homeless people usually gather looking for shelter.

"My baby, my baby!" cried the mother, in despair. Joselin, her three-month-old daughter, didn't react. He was in the cart he shared with Brunella, his sister, who was under the tutelage of the government of the city of Buenos Aires. A coffee seller approached the police guarding the Casa Rosada, and in a matter of minutes an ambulance arrived that could only certify the death of the little girl.

"I get up to give the girl boob and when I go to touch her she had no symptoms. I gave her the and after two hours I got up and I had no pulse," the mother told local media. "We have been on the street for two years. We are bad, how are we going to be. We are destroyed," added the mother, who has another son, aged five, who lives with an aunt.

"We want our children back. I want to find a job and rent something, but have the boys come back," the father said. The cause of the baby's death is not yet known. The bleak story only increased the hopelessness of Argentines in the face of the fall of the economy and social indicators.

"It hurts us and it occupies us. Inflation is taking the country's growth to a few pockets, leaving a large part of the population mired in uncertainty and the anguish of being able to bring bread home," argued the Minister of Social Development, Victoria Tolosa Paz.

"This is the most catastrophic legacy" of Peronism in power, criticized Mario Negri, one of the parliamentary leaders of the opposition who aspires to succeed Alberto Fernández on December 10 of this year.

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  • Argentina
  • Alberto Fernandez