A Flood Of Misery
Chamalecón River, department of Cortes, in Honduras. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for palabra.
Already under siege by gang violence and poverty, people in the riverside town of Chamelecón now face devastation from climate change and inaction by the Honduran government
In January, Brenda Toro waved farewell to several of her neighbors and friends who were boarding buses in the Metropolitan Grand Central in San Pedro Sula, Honduras’ largest city. The group was bound for the United States.
Brenda’s friends were going north to, perhaps, new lives far from Chamelecón, their tattered village in the department of Cortés, about 10 minutes away from the city by car. They were attempting to escape the grip of gang violence and poverty, and putting behind them memories of ravaging floods that came a year ago with back-to-back hurricanes.
Although Brenda did not lack the desire to join the migrant caravan, she did lack the money. Rather than leaving her husband and three children, she said she chose instead to hope that federal authorities would deliver on their post hurricane promises and alleviate her family’s urgent needs.
A man selling drinking water passes through Brenda Toro’s neighborhood. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for palabra.
Water overflow can be seen around the neighborhood. People have put up wooden boards to make way. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for palabra.
Chamalecón River, department of Cortes, in Honduras. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for palabra.
The push factors
Brenda understands why her friends are headed north. For some, there is family already there. There is also a job market that rewards them for surviving the perilous journey, even if, publicly, many in the U.S. say Hondurans, Guatemalans, Mexicans and others should just stay home. She knows that they can’t stay in Chamelecón and expect that everything’s going to be alright.
The immediate threats to people like Brenda are considerable:
The town is near the Chamelecón River. In good times, people cared for their banana plantations and navigated the river, trading goods by canoe and motor boat.
Today, however, the Sula Valley is ruled by the constricting authority of gangs, and an alarmingly high unemployment rate.
And climate change is now a threat to Chamelecón, one that appears certain to become yet another persistent challenge to the survival of this community.
All of this led to what is certainly the single-largest migrant caravan to form in Central America so far -- over 10,000 participants. Many residents of the valley abandoned their homes after two devastating hurricanes, Eta and Iota, hit northern Honduras in two frightening weeks last November.
The Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) estimates that at least 4.6 million people -- almost half of Honduras’ population -- were affected by Eta and Iota. Additionally, the ECLAC report states that around 2.5 million Hondurans are still in dire straits, with 92,000 people in shelters and 62,000 households affected to some degree.
Brenda, her husband Franklin. and their three children in an empty space where their home used to be. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for palabra.
Brenda and Franklin’s daughter Katherine opens her eyes wide to show off her deep green eyes. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for palabra.
Brenda's husband, Franklin, digs through the mud to begin the construction of a potential new home for his family. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for palabra.
Brenda’s family is among the many for whom life changed after the storms.
She recalls the morning of Nov. 4, 2020, when her neighborhood became engulfed by the sudden rush of water flooding into their homes. As many struggled to rescue the few belongings that the Chamelecón River had not washed away, the struggle became a fight to survive the floodwaters.
Brenda lost the home where she and her husband Franklin raised three children.
The aftermath of Eta and Iota was unlike anything seen before in the valley. Even Hurricane Mitch in 1998 -- one of the deadliest storms that ever hit Honduras, destroying 50 years of economic development -- did not produce the level of devastation of last year's fatal duo. Experts say the storms caused damage and stalled development worth about 45.676 million lempiras, or almost $2 billion.
Chamelecón and its many battles
Almost nine months have passed since Brenda and her family saw their house collapse and had to move under the Chamelecón Bridge. But today, they are still begging authorities to help them rebuild their home so that they can move back in. The ongoing uncertainty of disaster relief is one of the reasons why she now carries regret for not having joined the migrant caravan in January.
Long controlled by the Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and the Calle 18 gangs, Chamelecón locals are no strangers to the overwhelming fear that comes with residing in what was once labeled one of the world’s most violent cities.
The scarce job opportunities offered to Chamelecón residents do not alleviate the overall poverty rate exceeding 70% in 2021, up from 61.9% in 2020.
Yes, gang violence is not as acute as it once was. (According to a report by the United Nations Development Programme in Honduras, homicides in the region of San Pedro Sula decreased by 31% in the first half of 2020.) And Chamelecón no longer tops the list of districts most affected by crime. But residents still face repression by organized crime. Visitors to many of the area’s neighborhoods still must roll down car windows and be accompanied by people from within the community, to avoid unwelcome attention by gang members.
On top of that, pervasive effects of unemployment and extreme poverty have kept the community marginalized. Chamelecón locals Kevelyn and José, whose last names are omitted because they fear for their safety, explain their struggles to find good jobs. “Once they know I live in Chamelecón, they never contact me again,” José said.
The scarce job opportunities offered to Chamelecón residents do not alleviate the overall poverty rate exceeding 70% in 2021, up from 61.9% in 2020.
Chamelecón residents José Cruz and Josselyn López recall having to sleep on the bridge for three days after the two hurricanes, Eta and Iota, caused the river to overflow and left them houseless last year. A pastor recently donated a small home to the family. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for palabra.
Chamelecón’s muddy streets are a reflection of the government’s lack of response to the current climate crisis. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for palabra.
After losing control of their lives to gangs, and then losing homes and property to the storms, the COVID-19 pandemic over the last 16 months has been the least of their worries.
After Eta and Iota blew through, the pandemic did not go away. According to an analysis by the United Nations Disaster Assessment and Coordination (UNDAC) team, conditions in many of the shelters where Chamelecón residents were relocated during the storms were risky. Furthermore, an analysis by the United Nations found that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Eta and Iota storms have been more severe for women, girls and LGBTIQ+ people.
A “national priority”
After last November’s hurricanes, the Honduran government responded quickly, at least in words.
“I say this from San Pedro Sula to the rest of the world, that the regional councils throughout the country do the same as the Regional Council of Sula Valley did, asking that the construction of dams be declared a national priority,” read a tweet by President Juan Orlando Hernández posted on Nov. 27, 2020. After the world saw Hondurans scrambling up to rooftops and desperately pleading to be rescued, all eyes fell on the Orlando Hernández administration.
According to a press release published in April, the government set up the Commission for the Development of the Sula Valley to repair infrastructure and develop “agriculture (palm, sugar cane, bananas and other products) and humanitarian aid.” Héctor Leonel Ayala, presidential commissioner for the Sula Valley, said the work of repairing the Sula Valley embankments has been “transparent, open and televised.”
The Honduran government has not repaired or reinforced embankments along the Chamelecón River since it last overflowed, according to locals.
The Sula Valley Flood Control Commission also explained that it would invest 550 million lempiras, approximately $23 million, for flood protection. The Commission said that, out of 90 kilometers of the embankment that were damaged in the storms, 70 kilometers have been repaired.
Chamelecón locals are dubious. Reports of flooding in the area are still as common as the indignation felt by residents.
Protesting for protection from climate change
“We are not asking for food, we are not asking for vaccines. We want an embankment,” said Chamelecón resident Roberto Mejía, lawyer and community leader, during a protest earlier this summer.
There’s an urgency to the protests: A record-breaking hurricane season is predicted for the region this year. Still, the Honduran government has not repaired or reinforced embankments along the Chamelecón River since it last overflowed, according to locals.
Chamelecón residents are demanding solutions. “We need [the government] to send machinery to work now. We have already been trampled on so much by Juan Orlando and his administration,” Mejía said.
Instead, authorities responded to protests with clubs and tear gas, injuring several protesters.
Honduran police arrest one protestor after removing rocks placed by Chamelecón demonstrators to block the highway. Photo by María Aguilar for palabra.
Attorney Robert Mejía addresses residents of El Chamalecón at a recent protest outside a gas station. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for palabra.
The authorities came, and instead of using fresh soil to build the embankment, used the mud that was a product of the storms, Mejía said. “They did not repair anything,” the attorney shouted during the protest, as demonstrators echoed his denunciations. After the bloody event, locals offered to guide journalists and others to see for themselves how the land holding their community together continues to crumble under their feet. Among the debris, floating plastic waste and abandoned items that once belonged to people in the community stand out from the muddy ground.
An estimated 7,500 people fled north immediately after Eta and Iota. Growing tired of camping under bridges and left to their own devices, some preferred to embark on a dangerous journey rather than wait for the government’s response.
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) recently published its list of the ten most neglected displacement crises in the world in 2020. Honduras appears in fifth place. The NRC said a lack of international political will, media attention and economic support added to Honduras’ problems after “years of chronic food insecurity, criminal gang violence, gender-based violence, climate change, and widespread unemployment compounded by the economic consequences of COVID-19.”
In addition, the Washington, D.C.-based Migration Policy Institute identified corruption and COVID-19 as strong drivers of migration in 2020.
Climate change, however, is not frequently mentioned as a chronic cause of migration. After the Eta and Iota storms, over 19,000 migrants out of 41,195 applying for asylum in Mexico during the first four months of 2021 were Honduran, according to data from the Mexican Commission for Refugee Assistance. In the U.S, the Biden administration apprehended more than 170,000 migrants at the border in March.
A special report published by U.N.’s humanitarian information service ReliefWeb shows that small-scale subsistence farmers in the Dry Corridor -- a stretch of farmland running from Guatemala to northern Costa Rica -- experienced crop losses of 50% to 75% after four years of drought. Among those most affected by climate change, hazards are magnified for women and ethnic communities, according to the report.
No Plan B
At the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, held in Paris, President Orlando Hernández highlighted Central America’s high vulnerability to global warming. “There is no Plan B to save the Earth. The time is now,” he warned. “Let’s do it, for our children and the children of our children.”
Halfway through his first term in office, the president vowed to prioritize climate change action.
According to the 2019 Global Climate Risk Index, from the environmental non-profit organization Germanwatch, Honduras was the second country most affected by extreme weather between 1998 and 2017. U.N. experts warn that if no efforts to combat climate change are pursued by the Honduran government, its coastal areas will soon be underwater.
A neighbor watches as Franklin and the children start the initial stages of rebuilding a family home. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for palabra.
Brenda, Franklin and their three children, Josué (orange shirt), Franklin (the baby), and Katherine pose on the ground that will become their new home. Photo by Zaydee Sanchez for palabra.
Because of the clear signs of climate trouble ahead, and known consequences of inaction, residents along the Chamelecón River continue to demand the government’s attention. They insist that the government must recognize that living without the constant and excruciating fear of losing a life, home or livelihood is a human right, not a privilege.
“I need help repairing my roof because being home is what we need the most,” Brenda said, while her youngest child walked barefoot around a muddy yard. “I want my home back because living like this is no life at all.”
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María Aguilar is an award-winning visual storyteller focused on social justice, currently based in San Pedro Sula, Honduras. She is executive editor of the collegiate newspaper The Threefold Advocate at John Brown University in Arkansas, and graphics editor of Reportar Sin Miedo, an independent publication in Honduras.
Zaydee Sanchez is an independent documentary photographer based in Los Angeles. She focuses on homelessness, immigration, and racial discrimination.