Virus crisis cuts off billions sent to poor around the world
Miami
Until a month ago, Diana Leticia Hernández sold face cream door to door in Miami. Her husband painted houses. The money fed their family and at least six relatives in Honduras.
Hernández has sold nothing since last month due to fear and social-distancing restrictions in South Florida. Her husband has not worked either. This month, for the first time since shortly after their arrival in the United States 16 years ago, they were not able to send home about $300 to help their families with food, rent, medicine and school bills.
In the Honduran town of Villa Nueva Cortez, Hernández’s mother Teonila Murillo is running out of money to buy insulin for her diabetes, and Hernández’s brother doesn’t know if he’ll be able to make his $60 rent next month.
“I’m doing really badly,” Murillo told The Associated Press. “There’s no money, and no work. If you get sick here, you die.”
The devastation wrought by COVID-19 across the developed world in cutting into the financial lifelines for people across Latin America, Africa and Asia.
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