RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

Se­nior Mul­ti­me­dia Re­porter

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

Med­ical out­reach work­er Dr Christi­na Ben­itez has been trav­el­ling to Ica­cos to pro­vide care to Warao chil­dren liv­ing along the south-west­ern coast­line, as the mi­grant pop­u­la­tion in the area con­tin­ues to grow and un­cer­tain­ty deep­ens amid on­go­ing re­gion­al ten­sions.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia, Dr Ben­itez said her heart broke when she saw the chil­dren on the beach play­ing in the sand with sores on their feet. Their sto­ry was high­light­ed in a Guardian of the Peo­ple pub­li­ca­tion in Oc­to­ber. Us­ing her own per­son­al funds, Dr Ben­itez has been go­ing to the area to of­fer as­sis­tance.

“I have been try­ing my best to help, but it is too much for me to do alone. These chil­dren need us,” Dr Ben­itez said as she called for a com­pre­hen­sive, sus­tain­able plan to help mi­grant fam­i­lies.

Gi­a­tri Bis­soon­di­al-Ma­hadeo, who ac­com­pa­nied Dr Ben­itez dur­ing a Christ­mas Eve vis­it to Ica­cos on Wednes­day, al­so ex­pressed sad­ness over the mi­grant fam­i­lies, many of whom have lit­tle or no ac­cess to health­care, food, or ba­sic ser­vices. Bis­soon­di­al-Ma­hadeo, who plays Mrs Claus dur­ing Christ­mas, claimed the num­ber of Warao chil­dren liv­ing along the beach­front in Ica­cos has been in­creas­ing, while sup­port sys­tems re­main lim­it­ed. “While we were there, there was a lit­tle girl with a deep cut on her hand from play­ing with a bro­ken glass bot­tle,” she said. “There was al­so a man with a se­ri­ous in­fec­tion on his an­kle.”

She said Dr Ben­itez, a Cuban gen­er­al prac­ti­tion­er and out­reach work­er, at­tempt­ed to se­cure treat­ment for the in­jured man at the Ica­cos Health Fa­cil­i­ty, which is lo­cat­ed near­by. How­ev­er, she claimed she was told that on­ly chil­dren un­der the age of five would be treat­ed there and that old­er pa­tients were re­quired to go to Point Fortín Hos­pi­tal.

“How was he sup­posed to get there with­out mon­ey? With­out trans­porta­tion? With­out sup­port?” Bis­soon­di­al-Ma­hadeo asked. She de­scribed the liv­ing con­di­tions faced by the mi­grant fam­i­lies as se­vere, cit­ing lan­guage bar­ri­ers, lack of em­ploy­ment, ab­sence of le­gal sta­tus, and no ac­cess to elec­tric­i­ty, run­ning wa­ter, or birth con­trol. Food in­se­cu­ri­ty re­mains a con­cern, with res­i­dents telling her they had eat­en their last meal the day be­fore her vis­it.

“As I held one of the chil­dren in my arms, I could not stop my­self from won­der­ing what fu­ture await­ed these lit­tle hu­mans,” she said. Bis­soon­di­al-Ma­hadeo al­so point­ed to grow­ing xeno­pho­bia with­in lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties, re­count­ing an in­ter­ac­tion in which a man ques­tioned why help was be­ing giv­en to mi­grant fam­i­lies in­stead of Trinida­di­ans.

“There was ac­cu­sa­tion in his voice, but there was al­so fear,” she said, adding that the ex­change re­flect­ed con­cerns about lim­it­ed re­sources and em­pa­thy.

Any­one want­i­ng to as­sist Dr Ben­itez as she pro­vides free med­ical as­sis­tance to the Warao chil­dren can call her at 749-4002.