Reporting
Argentina: still demonstrations against the reduction in food aid
In Argentina, mobilizations are increasing to denounce the reduction in food aid from the government in a context of galloping inflation. While more than half of Argentinian children live below the poverty line, on Wednesday February 7, soup kitchen cooks from the suburbs of Buenos Aires came to demonstrate in front of the Ministry of Human Capital.
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A protester holds a sign reading "I am Beti, I am a student and I can no longer afford to eat" as she waits outside the office of Human Capital Minister Sandra Pettovello in Buenos Aires , in Argentina, February 5, 2024. REUTERS - Agustin Marcarian
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With our correspondent in Buenos Aires,
Théo Conscience
Behind a row of large, desperately empty pots, dozens of soup kitchen volunteers carry signs reading “
food is not an adjustment variable
.”
“
We came to ask for a response from Minister Sandra Petrovello, because they have not sent us food since December.
» Roxana is a cook in a soup kitchen in Guernica, one of the poorest towns in Argentina located around thirty kilometers south of Buenos Aires: “
We are reduced to fighting for food. We have children who are malnourished. It's getting worse and worse, inflation keeps increasing. Currently, we can no longer buy chicken, and we don't even have milk.
»
Read alsoReforms in Argentina: violence in front of Parliament, completely barricaded by the police
Since the start of Javier Milei's austerity shock in December, the price of food has increased by more than 50% without wages keeping pace with inflation. As a result, every day new people arrive in soup kitchens, Karina is alarmed. “
There is a lot of demand, and not just among children. Today we also see retirees arriving and even families who have formal employment!
»
Faced with this situation, social organizations are raising alarm signals. At the beginning of the week, when the Minister in charge of Social Affairs had said that she was going to receive those who were hungry one by one, hundreds of people took her at her word and formed a "queue
of the hungry
” more than 20 blocks long.
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