In Buenos Aires shantytowns, COVID sends poverty soaring

In Buenos Aires shantytowns, COVID sends poverty soaring

LA MATANZA, Argentina: Before the coronavirus pandemic, Daisy Garcia used to serve meals to around 80 people at a soup kitchen in a poor slum on the outskirts of the capital Buenos Aires. Now she distributes meals for almost 1,000. "We never, never imagined it would come to this,“ said the 26-year-old.

Since she emigrated from Paraguay 14 years ago, Garcia has lived in the La Matanza department, the most populous in Buenos Aires province. Ominously, the department is named after a massacre. Garcia's soup kitchen, funded by charitable donations, is located in a two-story building made of concrete - a luxury in this area of slums, where the dirt roads are piled high with rubbish.

"We never stop. Before we worked with 70 to 80 portions but now the pandemic has changed everything: Between 450 and 500 at lunchtime and at night 350 to 400 portions a day. We also work weekends,“ said Garcia. "Many people need it and many voices are asking for it. People come here from all over the place.“

Situated 20 minutes by car from the center of Buenos Aires, La Matanza and its "misery villages“, as slums are known here, illustrates the explosion of poverty in Argentina.