Soup kitchens forced to shut as report finds more than half of Argentines in poverty

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00:00 For 25 years, Father Toto has been doing social work in Shantytown 21, located in the south of Buenos Aires.

00:08 But since Javier Millet became president, the eight soup kitchens he runs have been cut off of food assistance from the government.

00:14 Just like the other thousands of soup kitchens in the country, they now only run thanks to private donations and volunteers.

00:21 Every day, they have to keep working with a little bit less.

00:26 Recently, I had to split a packet of pasta in half in order to share it between two soup kitchens.

00:31 It had never happened before, not even during the worst crisis.

00:34 We literally have to scrape the bottom of the barrel.

00:37 But demand for food keeps on growing.

00:44 Inflation, now an inter-annual rate of 289%, has destroyed the purchasing power of Argentinians,

00:54 which had already been battered by many years of crisis.

00:58 Those who could keep their head above water, like Miguel, are now drowning.

01:02 These past three months, he has been forced to come here to get his food.

01:06 All the prices have gone up so much, I can't make ends meet anymore.

01:13 So that way, at least, I save a little bit of money.

01:16 I would like not to have to come, but I have no choice. What else can I do?

01:20 Without food to hand out, dozens of soup kitchens have already had to shut down.

01:25 These women contributed their own money to buy the food for this activist distribution center.

01:30 This is our own way of protesting and saying to the government to give back the food.

01:35 But in almost six months of this new far-right administration, no answer has been given.

01:40 It's inhumane to gamble like this with the hunger of the people.

01:45 An Argentinian court has recently forced the government to distribute 6,000 tons of food

01:50 stored by the former administration, an amount insufficient

01:54 compared to the magnitude of the food crisis in the country.

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