Peru's left behind children
The hidden pandemic in Peru; the thousands of children who have lost one or both parents to Covid-19. They face a challenging future.
Peru has been battered by Covid-19. It has the highest known death toll in the world per capita. But behind the figures there’s another hidden pandemic. By the end of April 2021 around 93,000 children had lost a father, mother, grand-parent, or other primary caregiver to the virus - that’s one in every hundred children. For Assignment, Jane Chambers travels to Lima to meet the families struggling to cope. The immediate urgency of the health crisis is masking a much deeper malaise; that of a generation of children mentally and physically scarred by loss and poverty.
Reported and produced by Jane Chambers
Editor: Bridget Harney
(Image: Jhoana Olinda Antón Silva and her children in their home at the shrine they built for their father who died of Covid-19. Credit: Paola Ugaz)
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- Thu 30 Dec 2021 04:06GMT±«Óãtv World Service
- Thu 30 Dec 2021 09:06GMT±«Óãtv World Service
- Thu 30 Dec 2021 13:32GMT±«Óãtv World Service East and Southern Africa, South Asia, West and Central Africa & East Asia only
- Thu 30 Dec 2021 20:06GMT±«Óãtv World Service Online, Americas and the Caribbean, UK DAB/Freeview & Europe and the Middle East only
- Thu 30 Dec 2021 21:06GMT±«Óãtv World Service except Online, Americas and the Caribbean, Europe and the Middle East & UK DAB/Freeview
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