Freezing winter temperatures and famine are driving an increase in the migration of Indigenous Rarámuri people from Chihuahua’s Sierra Tarahumara to cities such as Ciudad Juárez.
Although every winter sees some Rarámuri migration, El Universal newspaper reports that numbers have surged this year, as temperatures in their native mountain villages plunge as low as -12 degrees Celsius. The extreme cold is adding to problems of food shortages caused by the summer’s severe drought.
“For about a month now, we have seen people from the mountains come down a lot,” Rosalinda Guadalajara, an Indigenous rights activist in Ciudad Juárez, told El Universal. “When the harvest failed, many said they got only a pinch of corn. Many people have left there to look for work, and because of the cold.”
In a press conference on Tuesday, the Chihuahua’s Health Minister, Gilberto Baeza Mendoza, said that the ministry has detected 67 cases of severe malnutrition in babies and children under the age of five in the Sierra Tarahumara this year. Of these, 16 died and six remain in hospital.
Baeza added that medical consultations for Indigenous children in the 19 municipalities of the Sierra Tarahumara increased from 344 in 2022 to 486 in 2023 so far. Infant malnutrition is most severe in the municipalities of Urique, Guadalupe and Calvo.
Chihuahua’s state government has tried to address the crisis by distributing around 96 tonnes of basic grain to 1,200 families in villages of the Sierra Tarahumara, but this has not halted the migration.
Guadalajara told El Universal that the largest Rarámuri exodus has been from the municipalities of Carichí and Cuautémoc, with most families heading to Ciudad Juarez. On arrival, many of these migrants stay with family in Rarámuri colonies at the edge of the city, some of them permanently.
Once they arrive in the city, the Rarámuri (many of whom aren’t native Spanish speakers) often encounter discrimination, and struggle to access government aid.
“There are people who, because they don’t know the [Spanish] language, lend people their card to take out support payments and are victims of abuse; others charge them for taking the money out,” Guadalajara explained.
As a result, many Rarámuri migrants are forced to survive through begging or selling sweets, handicrafts and herbs on the street.
With reports from El Universal and La Jornada Maya
![Speaking at an event on Friday in Mexico City, Mexico's economy minister said, "I guarantee you we're going to find [a way around]" Trump's tariffs.](https://mexiconewsdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/1013970_Seminario-Perspectivas-Economicas-ITAM-4_impreso-218x150.jpg "Economy minister: Trump tariff plan is unviable")
The drought across the entire region this summer was horrific…..yet you hardly here a peep out of the Mexican gov’t. about tackling climate change, getting off the oil addiction, or expanding renewable energy.
Global Warming my azz!
Global Warming is a hoax!
Global Cooling is a fact as Bill Gates sprays aluminum in the sky.
Mr. Mladinich III, there are literally hundreds-of-thousands of scientists and non-scientists, in every country on the planet, that have been collecting real data for decades showing that global warming is occurring and that it is being driven by human-generated CO2. Could you tell how that many people could be secretly perpetuating a hoax decade after decade? Are they linked by some kind of neural network from Mars, or do you think that’s a hoax too?
Drought is nothing new to that region. If you doubt this, study the history of the people who became the Aztecs. The same is true of the American southwest.
The statement everyone agrees human generated CO2 is the cause of the current period of global climate change is not correct. Quite a number of causative factors have been suggested including the approaching solar maximum, cycles of atmospheric moisture, the continued “recovery” from the last ice age, changes in the earth’s tilt, etc.
What is also known from geologic history is current temperature and CO2 levels are well below historic extremes both cold and hot.
Finally, I always marvel at how the climate religionists think they are so powerful they can actually change things by taxing the western countries while countries like China and India continue to build coal fired power plants and in general pollute madly. Somehow they seem to believe that wrecking the most CO2 responsible nations in favor of the least is going to do anything other than make the problem worse.
Good luck with that.