The Lake That Slowly Vanished
"It makes you want to cry seeing the whole lake dry," 17-year-old fisherman Wilman Estrada tells the AFP news agency from the shores of Lake Atescatempa in Guatemala.
In recent years, Estrada and his community have watched the once thriving lake become little more than a few muddy puddles. Now, the shells of clams, snails, and immobile boats litter the lakebed.
As reported by the AFP's Carlos Mario Marquez, Lake Atescatempa has undergone a prolonged drought in the past two years that has effectively eliminated the town's fishing and tourism industries.
"We have children who are dying from lack of food," Hector Aguirre says in the AFP video report. Aguirre works with Mancomunidad Trinacional, a Central American advocacy group
