Residents of the Las Victorias neighbourhood, most of them informal sellers, wave white flags as a sign asking for food, since the government suspended the movement of people due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in Soyapango, El Salvador May 19, 2020. [Source: Reuters]
Strict coronavirus lockdowns in Guatemala and El Salvador have so battered local economies.
Hundreds of families are flying white flags outside their homes or waving them in the street: not in surrender, but to seek food and assistance.
El Salvador and neighboring Guatemala, two of the poorest countries in the Americas, have borne some of the strictest quarantine measures.
People in these two countries have been in lockdown for 50 days now.
In towns and villages across the two countries, hundreds of signs have gone up asking for food, and people have taken to the streets to wave white flags in distress.
Food parcels from the national government and donations from ordinary people have helped to alleviate some of the want, but resources are stretched.
Food protests have broken out in countries including Venezuela and Chile.
