Peru case study: A Kichwa family, hungry and exposed to COVID-19, in eternal exodus

This article is part of a series on the impacts of COVID-19 on indigenous and tribal peoples. The full policy report, “COVID-19 and indigenous and tribal peoples:  the impacts and underlying inequalities” which features 10 case studies, including this one, is available here.

By Marie Joyce Godio, through the help of Matias Perez Ojeda del Arco, and Aristides Shupingahua

Aristides Shupingahua, a member of the Kichwa people in the Tupac Amaru community in the region of San Martin, is now safe with his family in their rural home. But getting there was an ordeal he and his family are unlikely to forget. Aristides, his wife, and their four children were among the 167,000 Peruvians who migrated from the urban areas when the pandemic hit. Dubbed a “reverse exodus,” [1] the lockdown imposed on 15 March 2020 resulted in thousands of people being forced to sleep on the streets of Lima while waiting to return home to their communities. The lockdown shut down all businesses and schools, which gravely affected day labourers. With no daily income, paying rent and buying food became harder with each passing day. The capital slowly became hostile and uninhabitable. 

Aristides and his family had travelled to Lima in December 2019 to visit his eldest daughter for the holidays. He also needed to be in the capital to process his pension claim from his military service during the Peru-Ecuador war in 1995, a claim he had been pursuing for years. 

He ended up working at a Chinese restaurant where his daughter was working as a waitress until the government declared a state of emergency due to COVID-19 and implemented the lockdown. His job at the restaurant did not earn his family the additional income that they so badly needed. They eventually decided to leave their rented home and head to Military Base Number 8, in the hope that they could join one of the few humanitarian flights travelling to San Martin. 

After spending several days in the streets outside the military base, Aristides was able to get his wife and two younger children to a testing centre; they needed a negative test in order to board the flight. His wife and children managed to fly to San Martin on the same day they got tested; they then had to observe the obligatory 14-day quarantine in Chumia in Chazuta district before finally heading to their community. 

Along with thousands of others, Aristides and his two older children remained on the streets of Lima and survived on food donated by volunteers and friends. These people had no money and were unable to charge their phones to communicate with their families. They needed to get tested and to find the means to get home, otherwise hunger would have taken them before the virus. [2] Out of desperation, many of those living in the streets skipped getting tested and decided to travel home on foot. This was particularly the case for those whose ID cards indicated they were Lima residents—they didn’t trust the regional government to get them get on an available flight or bus. 

After a month and a half on the street, Aristides and his two older children finally made it to Chumia quarantine centre on 26 May. He recalls the centre offered them not “a single grain of rice to eat” or a proper place to sleep. In general, Peru’s regional government doesn’t have the resources and facilities to receive the wave of people returning to their communities. 

Aristides will be growing cassava, plantain and beans in his family plot. His farm and the proximity of his relatives make his hometown a far safer place than Lima. He and his family will stay in Tupac Amaru tending their crops as they brave the pandemic together. 

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/world/americas/20virus-peru-migration.html 

[2] https://www.thenation.com/article/world/peru-coronavirus-covid-19/