In food-rich Brazil, people go hungry as pandemic rages (Part I)

The lines of homeless and other needy people waiting for free meals in the streets of Brazil are growing longer as the Covid-19 pandemic rages out of control. In downtown Sao Paulo, Miguel da Silva clutches a sealed package containing rice, vegetables and meat or fish after lining up with some 300 other people, most of them panhandlers. "It is better to come here than to ask for money"in the streets, said da Silva, 70, who says his pension has been held up by the government and spends what little he earns on his rent.

Under the crushing sun of Rio de Janeiro, a man named Mario Lima is also waiting for a food handout, along with hundreds of elderly people, pregnant women and homeless folk. For many, it is their only meal of the day. "Everything is expensive. If I were to buy the food they are giving out here, it would cost more than 1,000 reals ($170) a month,"said Lima, who is 72. His retirement pension is enough for his rent, a few basic expenses and nothing else.

Da Silva and Lima provide just two snapshots of how Brazil is growing poorer during the Covid-19 pandemic. The global health crisis has left more than 315,000 people dead in the country and millions unemployed, and has pushed many people into poverty and hunger, who did not know such pain before.

From: shorturl.at/wJKRZ. Accessed on 04/17/2021