Forgotten in the dust of northern Colombia

PERSPECTIVE | Gnawing hunger and thirst never leave the Wayuu

Protesters carry 500 child-size coffins made of paper in Bolivar Square in Bogota in 2016 to protest the deaths of Wayuu children. (Nicolò Filippo Rosso)

Photos by Nicolò Filippo Rosso. Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Nick Miroff.

Italian photographer Nicolò Filippo Rosso has spent much of the past two years living in the Guajira at the far northern tip of Colombia.

It’s a parched, desert landscape of sand dunes and baked earth, crisscrossed by drug traffickers and contraband smugglers, but mostly forgotten by everyone else. In the the Guajira, Rosso is entangling himself in the lives of the land’s native people, the Wayuu, and their problems. Sometimes he photographs them. Other times, he brings them doctors.

A view of one of the highest routes through La Guajira desert in Northern Colombia. Locals say that these routes are used by smugglers of gasoline and drugs. (Nicolò Filippo Rosso)

The Wayuu live in conditions so precarious that their very name has become a kind of shorthand in Colombia for extreme poverty. They herd goats and survive on government handouts or the pocket change of the traffickers who use the peninsula as a Caribbean launchpad.

Left: Francia Epiayu, 19, is seen in 2015 during her third pregnancy. She said one of her children died from malnutrition and that she became blind during her pregnancy. Right: Rain falls on a girl in May 2016 after a long drought. (Nicolò Filippo Rosso)

Gnawing hunger and thirst never leave the Wayuu. As many as 5,000 Wayuu children have died over the past decade from malnutrition and a lack of basic medical care, according to activists and aid groups. Tens of thousands more subsist in a kind of nomadic desert wretchedness, their misery compounded by the corruption of Wayuu leaders and local officials who have channeled much of the government’s emergency aid into their pockets.

The Guajira Peninsula where the Wayuu live is also home to one of the world’s largest open-pit coal mines, Cerrejon, owned by a British-Swiss-Australian conglomerate. Most of its massive output is loaded onto ships and sent to power plants in Europe.

The Wayuu and the advocacy groups that support them say the coal mine has made life in the Guajira considerably worse. Scarce water has been diverted to the thirsty mining operation, leaving the Wayuu with dry wells or water too contaminated to drink. The subsistence crops that once supplemented their poor diets have dried up.

Cerrejon says it is bringing much needed jobs to an impoverished region and is committed to improving the lives of the Wayuu.

Left: A coal pit at Cerrejon, one of the world’s largest open-pit coal mines. Right: A child sits in front of a well in Manaure in 2016. The Wayuu and their advocates say scarce water has been diverted to the high-consumption mine, leaving the Wayuu with dry wells or contaminated water. (Nicolò Filippo Rosso)

Rosso sees the coal mine as a cause of the Wayuu’s extreme economic and geographic marginalization, as the energy needs of the global economy push them further to the edge. But he’s also seen their suffering worsened by corruption — their “leaders” taking aid money meant for hungry children.

Left: woman sits beside her son at the Manaure Hospital. Wayuu women often walk hours through the desert from their communities to reach the closest hospital, and when they arrive, they often find that the doctors do not speak their language. Right: Heider David, 8, lies in a hammock in 2016. His family says he is malnourished and unable to stand or speak. He spends most of his time in a hammock or a large bucket that his family uses to transport him outside of the house. (Nicolò Filippo Rosso)

The first time Rosso saw a pregnant, malnourished Wayuu woman, he said he knew he wouldn’t be able to walk away easily from the Guajira. He wasn’t sure what to do when his subjects needed urgent medical care or food but realized the need to help them took precedence over the need to take pictures of them.

Maricela Uriana Epiayu, 22, was a mother of two children under the age of 5. Doctors said she had severe malnutrition and diabetes and had gone blind. With the help of a Bogota-based nongovernmental organization, Epiayu was taken to the hospital and received support at home with her children until her death from an infection in August 2016. (Nicolò Filippo Rosso)

“If I have the means to save someone in an emergency, I have to do it,” he said, speaking from Bogota, the capital, where he now lives. “Sometimes I have to stop working and take someone to the hospital.”

Left: Wayuu people dance and drink a traditional alcohol called “chirrinchi” in 2016 during the Virgen del Carmen festival. Right: Lilia Uriana and her sister-in-law stand under a cabana in La Guajira. (Nicolò Filippo Rosso)

A woman and a child wait for a train to pass. (Nicolò Filippo Rosso)

Left: Members of the community stand at the grave of a 2-year-old who they said died of a fever in 2016. Wayuu consider death as important or more important than life. During funerals, Wayuu women cry and cover their faces with veils or towels. They say their tears accompany the soul of the dead to “Jepirra” or the afterworld. Right: A man holds the coffin of Carlos Arturo Pushaina in 2016. Pushaina’s family says he was only 1½ years old and died from malnutrition. (Nicolò Filippo Rosso)

People fill tanks with water from a water truck brought by a Bogota-based NGO that supplies water to more than 32 communities around the municipality of Manaure every day. (Nicolò Filippo Rosso)

A woman cooks soup in 2016. According to the Wayuu and their advocates, there is no longer enough water for the subsistence crops that once supplemented their poor diets. (Nicolò Filippo Rosso)