Queen Letizia enters Honduras worst hit by hurricanes

Armed with high boots to tread the mud that covers the streets, Queen Letizia witnessed this Tuesday the scene of devastation that persists in one of the northern areas of Honduras one month after the passage of tropical storms Eta and Iota.

The queen donned the characteristic red vest of the Spanish cooperation to visit a destroyed school and shelter which is home to dozens of people who have lost their homes to the tragedy, comparable to that caused by Hurricane Mitch in 1998.

During her visit to the municipality of La Lima, near San Pedro Sula, one of the points of the ‘ground zero’ of the catastrophe, Letizia was accompanied by the president of Honduras, Juan Orlando Hernández, and the first lady, Ana García , to whom he previously gave a symbolic delivery of the aid of 120 tons of emergency supplies donated by Spain.

First Eta and, two weeks later, Iota, devastated part of the country with heavy rains and floods that have left the streets and houses covered with mud already 100,000 people housed in shelters.

The queen first went to the Colonia Flores de Oriente school in La Lima, one of the 534 that have been demolished throughout Honduras.

There she spoke with four students, to whom he expressed his confidence that, thanks to the help of Spain, they can return to classes in February, when the resumption of the course is scheduled.

“How is your family doing?”, The queen was interested in the tears of Jeremy, 14 years old, whom she consoled by resting her hand on his shoulder.

For his friend Said, it is “scary” to see the school flooded with mud. “It’s disastrous. This is where we had fun,” he commented to the broken chairs dragged to the patio.

A woman from the community also approached the queen to report that she lost her home, but that her “greatest pain” was that there was no school. “My heart is happy because now they are going to have it again,” he thanked.

From the school, the delegation went to the Instituto Patria, also in La Lima, whose classrooms have been converted into a shelter for about 150 families that this week received mattresses to stop sleeping on the floor.

One of the victims showed the queen what she was able to rescue from her house -a microwave and dishes-, while another occupant of the classroom thanked her for visiting those who “have no voice.” 

Another woman, with three children, has also been staying for a month and has no prospect of returning for now. “In my house there is still water because it has been stagnant,” he lamented.

Among those affected, there is a coincidence that Eta and Iota have been more destructive than Mitch, although he left about 5,000 deaths and now the estimate is only a hundred, which they attribute to the fact that thanks to cell phones and social networks, people were able to shelter in time.

“Every year there are floods, but this has been worse than Mitch,” said a Spanish priest who has been in Honduras for 41 years.

In the institute there are nurses who do coronavirus testing, although contagion is not the main concern of the evacuees.

“We are afraid, the problem is that now we are more afraid of other things, because we do not have a home,” prioritized Kenya, who complained of abandonment by the authorities.

The Honduran president stressed the importance of “making visible what has happened” and for the international community to be aware that Honduras is “one of the three countries most impacted by climate change” and by increasingly destructive storms.

Hernández asked Felipe VI and the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez, to “become the leaders of the process of consolidating cooperation” towards Honduras in the “crusade” of reconstruction.

The queen, accompanied by the Spanish Secretary of State for International Cooperation, Ángeles Moreno, began the day with a meeting with NGO representatives, who described the drama that the population is experiencing.

The delegate of the Spanish Red Cross, Raúl Gutiérrez, regretted that the pandemic and other events, such as the elections in the United States, “have made what happened in Honduras invisible”.

“That is why it is good that the queen comes to give that support for the sacrifice and effort of Spanish aid workers and, above all, the Honduran people," Gutiérrez said.

The queen completed her visit to Honduras with a lunch with the Honduran president and his wife in San Pedro de Sula, joined by several ministers.