Peru in Lockdown: Internal Migrants Return Home on Foot

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – In Peru, tens of thousands of people are marching home – from the coastal city of Lima to the Andes highlands. Many were stranded in the capital during quarantine measures when bus services between the provinces were suspended overnight on March 15th.

But while the government brought tourists home from abroad on special flights followed by a hotel quarantine, domestic migrants received little support.

A large proportion of them live in the big city at times, using the income to support their families in the province. Now they can neither work nor easily return home. Some of them were thrown out into the street by their landlords.

“Before the virus kills us, hunger will kill us” – this is how one of the marchers describes the severity of the situation. She had used up her meager savings. In groups, the people set out on their journey to cover hundreds of kilometers and thousands of meters in altitude on foot. They are forced to sleep out in the open.

“We have nothing to eat, so we are returning to our villages where we at least have something to eat,” explains an unemployed street vendor who is also on the road. But the police are taking brutal action against the “quarantine breakers” and are preventing the returnees from continuing their journey. Nevertheless, some of them still manage to get past the police blockades.

For human rights attorney José Saldaña, the situation is clear: “Everything suggests that these people are internal refugees as defined by international law.”

Accordingly, the state is legally obliged to guarantee safe transport and accommodation – or to provide the people locally with the most basic needs from the very beginning.

As a result of the massive criticism, the Peruvian government reacted last week and announced the financing of a humanitarian recall operation. President Martín Vizcarra stressed that the transfer of returnees could only take place with subsequent quarantine accommodation.

Earlier, a number of regional governments had already single-handedly organized occasional special buses, but with no adequate sanitary protection. Currently, plans are being prepared to ensure safe transport for returnees.

The government has also taken surprisingly progressive measures to support households: President Vizcarra said on Thursday that the government would pay a subsidy equivalent to €200 (R$1,200) to three-quarters of Peruvian households during the state of emergency, which is the amount of money that many households are currently deprived of due to curfews.

The measure was the result of an initiative by the Broad Front left-wing party, which had originally demanded €300 (R$1,800). Before this, aid payments of €100 had already gone out to needy households.

The otherwise tightly liberal economic government is also demonstrating a pragmatic change of direction in another area: at least temporarily, additional taxation, particularly of high incomes, is intended to support the national budget during the crisis. A temporary additional tax for selected companies in certain sectors is also being planned.

However, the pandemic could spur significant ecological transformation processes: The Lima transport authority is planning to build hundreds of kilometers of bike lanes in the next few months in a rush to relieve the city’s chronically overstrained public transport system. The aim is to guarantee “keeping a distance” on the roads.

With more than 20,000 people infected, Peru is one of the countries with the most coronavirus cases in Latin America. This is partly due to the high number of tests the country has carried out to date. There are 525 intensive care beds available for Covid-19 patients. The number is to be increased to 600. However, there are already extreme shortages in some regions, such as the Amazon province of Loreto.

The lockdown has been extended throughout the country at least until May 10th.