“Mr. Officer, we have nothing to eat at home. A Brazilian police officer heard these words when he answered the emergency call last Tuesday. At the end of the line is Miguel, an 11-year-old child. The official initially assumes domestic neglect. But when he went there, he noticed that it had been three days since the seven family members who lived in an attic in Santa Luzia, near Belo Horizonte (southeast), had only eaten cornmeal diluted with water.
Célia, 46, is raising six children alone, and with inflation eroding the purchasing power of the poorest in Latin America’s largest economy, she can no longer buy enough to feed them.
The empty kitchen has taken on the look of a convenience store
The police then went to the supermarket to take the family groceries, some paid for out of pocket and others offered by the store’s manager, to whom they had explained the reason for their presence in the neighborhood. When the local press broke this gripping story, the drama surrounding the Barros family moved the whole of Brazil and donations began to flow.
The kitchen, with no groceries and a hopelessly empty fridge, has taken on the look of a convenience store. “We got a lot of food, a lot of different things, even food that I didn’t recognize,” said young Miguel, opening a full cupboard.
Hunger has once again become a major problem in Brazil
“We suffered a lot. Hunger hurts so much, I will never forget these moments,” sighs Célia, who survived thanks to odd jobs but was inactive during the Covid-19 crisis. “After a while you don’t even have the strength to get up. Miguel saw me in despair, in tears and decided to act. Thank god everything has changed. »
The plight of this family has a special echo in a country where hunger has become a major problem again after being virtually eradicated over the past decade. This year, for the first time since 2014, Brazil reappeared on the UN’s ‘world hunger map’, with 28.9% of the population living in a moderate ‘food insecurity’ or severe ‘food insecurity’ condition. Images showing starving people fighting over bones in dumpsters are increasingly circulating on social media.