Rats, Bats Plague Nicaragua's Miskito Indians
Date: 12-Sep-05
Country: NICARAGUA
Miskito Indians from communities near the Coco River face severe food shortages after rodents ate most of their crops, and they are increasingly worried about attacks by blood-sucking bats, Alfredo Misael of the United Nations Development Program said.
"The rats destroyed between 90 percent and 100 percent of the crops, directly affecting 4,500 people," he said in a telephone interview.
In the summer rainy season the rats flee riverside homes for higher agricultural land, where they gorge on Miskito crops of rice and plantain.
The rat population has boomed in Miskito territories as people hunt more snakes -- the rats' natural predator -- for food and for their skins.
Vampire bats, which are also worrying locals, are relatively common in Central America and feed mainly by drinking the blood of livestock and birds. Reports of attacks on humans are infrequent, but since the bat population is on the rise, officials fear attacks on humans could increase. "The danger is that they spread rabies to people," Misael said.
The Miskito Indians, many who live in extreme poverty, are a mainly English-speaking group indigenous to the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua and Honduras.
Their territory was a British protectorate in the 18th century, from where, alongside the British, they launched attacks against Spanish colonies. Many do not consider themselves Nicaraguan.
The Nicaraguan government is working with the United Nations to fly food aid to the affected villages and design rat-resistant planting programs.