COVID-19 in Peru: thousands of jobless face hunger amid crisis

01:24

As Peru's coronavirus lockdown surpasses a month, thousands working in Peru's informal economy have been forced to leave their homes in search of food and work.

Community kitchens closed when Peru's government announced a quarantine in mid-March. Now only one charityorganizationis offering food on the streets of the Peruvian capital Lima. The queues are long, and many of the recipients are street vendors who have no one to sell to anymore.

CGTNspoketoMilagros, a homeless merchantwho said,"I'm a single mother. I have three children. I do not have a husband, I'm on my own. I need to move forward. I need to go out to work, but I can't. I've been detained several times."

One poll found around a third of Peruvians have stopped receiving any kind of income since the quarantine began. Many people from the countryside who had been working in the capital are seeking to return home.

The InternationalLaborOrganizationsays the pandemic hascostat least 14 million jobs in Latin America.