Nicaraguans demand action over illness killing thousands of sugar cane workers | World news | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/16/-sp-nicaragua-kidney-disease-killing-sugar-cane-workers
In the blistering heat of Chichigalpa, the Sandinista heartland of north-west Nicaragua, weary men rest in shaded hammocks gazing at the endless rows of lofty sugar cane. The latest harvest weighs heavy on these communities that are being decimated by a deadly disease.
At least 20,000 people are estimated to have died of chronic kidney disease (CKD) in Central America in the past two decades – most of them sugar cane workers along the Pacific coast.
In the municipality of Chichigalpa, the disease is responsible for almost half of male deaths in the last 10 years. Sick men hasten their deaths by continuing to work in secret to support their families. The town is fast becoming a land of widows.