Fears of hunger overwhelm Guatemalan village as El Niño approaches

While drought expands through Cunen as the spectre of El Niño climate instability approaches, one fear has seized this indigenous Guatemalan village — death from hunger. The rains still haven’t come here, where local farmers fear the lack of water could ruin the subsistence crops on which they depend to survive. “If there isn’t rain, (the crops) won’t come … If there isn’t anything, we’re going to die of hunger,” 38-year-old Cecilia Pasa Sarat, who has planted a small amount of corn, told AFP in Xetzac, a village in Cunen. Indigenous woman Lucia Rojop, 43, shows corn cobs at her house in the Xetzac community of Cunen, Quiche department, Guatemala, on May 27, 2026. —AFP Cunen is a hard-to-reach mountainous region where the majority of the approximately 47,000 residents are poor and rely on water from wells that are now going dry. This village in the Indigenous Maya department of Quiche lays in the heart of the Dry Corridor, an arid mountainous stretch running through Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua that’s become vulnerable to extreme climatic events. Quiche was one of Guatemala’s most hard-hit regions during the El Niño related food crisis in 2023. Some worry the crisis could return due to a lack of government support. Indigenous woman Cecilia Pasa, 38, works on her drought-affected corn plantation in the Xetzac community of Cunen, Quiche department, Guatemala, on May 27, 2026. —AFP The phenomenon now fueling local residents’ hunger fears occurs every two to six years as part of a natural climatic cycle that affects the surface temperatures on the Pacific Ocean. It’s expected to start between June and August, creating planetary ripple effects lasting months. Aerial view of a corn plantation in the Xetzac community of Cunen, Quiche department, Guatemala, on May 27, 2026. —AFP Prolonged damage Weeks of drought have dessicated the dusty streets of Xetzac, where the creeks that usually irrigate the town’s patchwork of corn, potato, broccoli and bean fields are evapor