BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — A boat carrying

People from the Tikuna Indigenous community wait to receive aid from a nonprofit amid a drought on Amazon River in Loma Linda, near Leticia, Colombia, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)People from the Tikuna Indigenous community wait to receive aid from a nonprofit amid a drought on Amazon River in Loma Linda, near Leticia, Colombia, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

A man from the Tikuna Indigenous community carries a cistern from a nonprofit that can be used to catch and store rainwater for the community amid a drought in Loma Linda, near Leticia, Colombia, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)A man from the Tikuna Indigenous community carries a cistern from a nonprofit that can be used to catch and store rainwater for the community amid a drought in Loma Linda, near Leticia, Colombia, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)In a community called La Playa on the outskirts of Leticia, Ermencida Miranda runs a small store out of her wooden home propped on stilts, selling things like cleaning supplies and Peruvian, Colombian and Brazilian foods in this area where the three countries come together. And Miranda worries about access to water.

“In all the communities ... we are suffering because of the water, because it’s not raining, the drought is really severe,” said Miranda, 48, who came from Putumayo eight years ago in search of better economic opportunities.“We bathe in the river water, but for cooking and drinking we have to wait for rainwater and when there’s none, we have to buy water from Leticia. Imagine that!” said Miranda, of the Tikuna people.

An Indigenous man from the Tikuna community bathes in the Amazon River, in Loma Linda, Colombia, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

An Indigenous man from the Tikuna community bathes in the Amazon River, in Loma Linda, Colombia, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)An Indigenous woman from the Wayuu community feeds her baby in the Belen neighborhood on the outskirts of Riohacha, Colombia, Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. (AP Photo/Ivan Valencia)

Ingrid Gonzalez, a Wayuu community leader from Maracaibo who’s lived in the Villa del Sol settlement near Riohacha for six years, says those more traditional Wayuu homes, made with sticks and covered in mud, are very susceptible to the rainy season.“There are many, many houses that flood and fill up with water,” said 29-year-old Gonzalez. “A strong river of water passes through here, and the mud houses collapse.”

“Some people manage to preserve their homes by reinforcing them, but the damage is still significant,” she said. “Several of my own roofing sheets were blown off.”Samuel Lanao, head of Corpoguajira, La Guajira’s environment authority, said in 2024 extreme winter floods caused significant losses of homes, crops, and domestic animals in Indigenous communities, particularly among those coming from neighboring Venezuela. “Because of climate change, there’s been a rise in vector-borne diseases like dengue and Zika. Dengue, in particular, has hit Indigenous communities very, very hard,” he said.