Illustrative image taken from Archivo/RHC

By Guillermo Alvarado 

For centuries, no region of the planet has suffered so many abuses, concentrated so many evils and calamities, as Africa, a continent that seems to be on the fringes of the human species, whose inhabitants live exposed to hunger, disease and natural phenomena.

A recent joint report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, FAO, and the Economic and African Union Commissions, revealed that malnutrition grew there by almost 50 percent between 2014 and 2020.

That means that 281.6 million people suffer from serious food deficiencies, almost 90 million more than seven years ago, or, in other words, that all efforts to ensure that the scourge of hunger diminishes and families there have access to a decent meal have failed.

In addition to the usual causes of this problem, such as poverty, armed conflicts, climate variations and plagues, there are now the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The most terrible thing is that this is an area where enormous natural wealth is concentrated, the exploitation of which does not favor the local inhabitants at all, but foreign companies.

Africa is a raped child, a friend who worked there for several years once told me, so its recovery will never be complete and depends on a number of factors, including the will of the international community, which is rather inclined to turn its back on it, abandon it or forget it.

This has been the case since the infamous slave trade and the voracious European colonization, which drew borders at will, separated peoples and was the root of many problems that still today cause victims and resentment.

But that exploitation is far from over, because the developed world extracts from there valuable minerals and the so-called "rare earths" that are strategic for transportation, the space and military industry and modern communication technologies.

Resources worth billions of dollars leave Africa, where they leave only crumbs, corruption, destroyed soils, labor conditions very close to slavery and no local development whatsoever.

It is also shameful what is happening with vaccination against COVID-19.  While in Europe immunization reaches 70 percent or more, in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo it is less than 1 percent.

It is said that Africa is the cradle of humanity, that the seed was born there and spread to all continents. How sad and ungrateful is the payment it receives in return.