Running dry: the water crisis driving migration to the US

Today in Focus Series

Nina Lakhani explores how drought and famine are fuelling the wave of migration from Central America to the US. Plus: Emma Graham-Harrison on China and the Hong Kong protests

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Victor Funez walks to a cemetery in Nejapa, El Salvador, every day and fills a three-gallon plastic pitcher with water before trudging home. He repeats this several times a day – it’s his family’s only source of water. The Guardian’s Nina Lakhani met him as part of an investigation into how a lack of access to clean water is a major driver of migration from Central America to the US.

She tells India Rakusen that rising sea levels are destroying coastal towns in Honduras and how drought and famine have prompted a mass exodus from Guatemala. In El Salvador, meanwhile, corporate interests, corruption and gangs worsen the problems caused by the lack of clean water.

Also today: Emma Graham-Harrison on the rising tensions in Hong Kong, with further mass protests planned for the weekend.

Victor Funes and his daughter Patricia carrying water in Nejapa, El Salvador
Photograph: Juan Carlos/The Guardian
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