A week ago, Celia Barros’ fridge was desperately empty. Today, this single Brazilian mother no longer knows where to store the food from the donations that keep coming in after her son called the police for help.
“Mr. Officer, we don’t have anything to eat at home,” Miguel, 11, told the policeman who answered the emergency number last Tuesday.
Three days had passed since the seven members of the family who live in an attic in Santa Luzia, near Belo Horizonte (southeast), feed only on corn flour diluted in water.
influx of donations
The officer who received the call dispatched police to the scene, believing it to be a case of domestic neglect. But what they saw was an all too common scene: a mother unable to feed her children while inflation eroded the purchasing power of the poorest in Latin America’s largest economy.
The police then went to the supermarket to bring food to the family, some paid out of pocket and others offered by the manager of the business, to whom they had explained the reason for their presence in the neighborhood.
When the local press told this moving story, the tragedy of the Barros family shocked all of Brazil and donations began to flow. The cramped kitchen, previously devoid of food, has taken on the appearance of a convenience store.
“Hunger Hurts So Much”
“We got a lot of food, a lot of different things, even foods that I didn’t even know about,” said young Miguel, opening a full cupboard.
His mother Célia, 46, has eight children, six of whom she is raising alone today. She survived thanks to odd jobs, but she found herself inactive during the Covid-19 crisis.
“We suffered a lot. Hunger hurts so much, I will never forget those moments, ”she sighs, holding in her arms a small baby, the youngest of her children.
“After a while, you don’t even have the strength to get up. Miguel saw me desperate, crying and decided to act. Thank God, that changed everything.”
Mass hunger returns to Brazil
The difficult situation of this family has had a particular echo in a country where hunger has once again become a major problem, having been practically eradicated in the last decade.
For the first time since 2014, Brazil reappeared this year on the UN “World Hunger Map”, with 28.9% of the population living in a state of “moderate” or severe food insecurity.
Images showing starving people fighting over bones in dumpsters are spreading more and more on social media.
In this distressing context, Célia is proud to be able to help neighbors in need to fill their refrigerators. “We received so many donations that now, I who had nothing, I can help others,” she says.
Source: BFM TV
