Voiceover : This little girl, Cynthia, is 18 months old. Her hair is falling out, she is just skin and bone and her stomach is swollen. Diagnosis: First degree malnutrition. Pictures such as these rarely find their way into the media in Argentina. The starvation crisis is not a popular topic of conversation. Buenos Aires: once the proud capital of the richest country in Latin America. After four years of crisis, there is no actual shortage of food, but nobody can afford it. And now almost 60 percent of the population are living below the poverty line.
The Children's Hospital in Posadas is of European standard, but the doctor Paulina Tagliaberri is dealing with young patients whose symptoms were hitherto confined to the disaster areas of Africa. The doctor believes that almost all the children here show symptoms of starvation. Malnutrition is usually the cause of other illnesses as well. 6-year-old Maximilian, already suffering from starvation, is in hospital here because an infection has developed in his stomach. Every sickroom tells the same story. The children are usually so weak that the body's defence system has broken down.

Dr Paulina Tagliaberri, Paediatrician : "Parasites are very common Such illnesses are a typical consequence of malnutrition."

Reporter : "What causes this swollen stomach?"

Dr Paulina Taliaberri : "The stomach muscles are so weak that they can no longer hold the digestive organs together - that's what causes it. Then there is flatulence - wind, fluids in the digestive system, but the muscular apparatus has regressed. Look at how the muscles on the arm have shrunk. There simply aren't enough muscles to hold the stomach together."

Voiceover : The problem of hunger has now spread to almost every province in Argentina. Those especially affected are children of pre-school age. Schoolchildren at least are provided with one meal in school. The twins Estefani and Gemani: they were born with symptoms of deficiency, since their mother Rosana de Lima was also undernourished. The cause is always the same: abject poverty.

Rosana de Lima : "My husband just does odd jobs."

Doctor : "What sort of work - whatever he can?"

Rosana de Lima : "Yes, whatever he can, whatever turns up."

Doctor : "And how much can he earn then, for the children and to feed the family."

Rosana de Lima : "I don't know; it depends, maybe a couple of francs a day."

Doctor : "And does he bring money home every day?"

Rosana de Lima : "No, not every day."

Doctor : "But how often a week?"

Rosana de Lima : "It depends. Sometimes he earns something, but sometimes he earns nothing."

Doctor : " You mean sometimes every day, and then just once a week?"

Rosana de Lima : "There are weeks when nothing comes in."

Doctor : "There is no point in me recommending anything to feed the children; she simply does not have the money to buy food."

Voicover : Cynthia's family live in a small one-room dwelling on the outskirts of Posadas. The social worker, Armada Martinez, and the doctor are visiting the family because the child's condition is critical. The mother, pregnant again with twins, does not have the money to pay the bus fare to the hospital. The child is being looked after by the fifteen-year-old daughter. Cynthia has all the symptoms of malnutrition. A plastic sack is being used as a diaper. The child's growth is stunted, and she is constantly being weakened by new illnesses.

Doctor : "You can see where the base of the spine is swollen. That is what is causing the infection."

Reporter : "Are these common problems in this part of town?"

Armanda Martinez, Soccial worker : " These problems exist all over the whole prvince. This is a very rich province for a small group of people, and a very poor one for the majority of the population."

Voiceover : The social worker wants to know whether the father has work.

Cynthia's mother : "Odd jobs. He earns very little, sometimes one or maybe two francs. And we get milk from the health service."

Reporter : "Can the Government not help more?"

Doctor : "In the case of this family there is no more help available, As the person in charge of housekeeping, the mother is only entitled to a fixed sum of money to support the family - 50 francs a month for ten people. We don't know why the size of the family is not taken into consideration, the applications seem to have got buried in red tape. And corruption is rife. It takes a long time to prove that help is necessary, even when there is just one child as undernourished as Cynthia."

Voiceover : The grandchild is still being breastfed, but is threatened by the same fate as Cynthia, for whom the doctors in the medium term see little chance of survival.