During recent power cuts one of the things that has been surprising has been that there has been somebody going around making announcments over a megaphone. The sound is too far away for it to be heard but I asked some of the seminarians what was going on.
Apparently, the announcment is telling people to switch off their mobile phones. This rather confused me - could there be some danger of mobile phones attracting electricity? It seemed very unlikely. After having been confused for a while, all was made clear. Apparently, what has been happening is that during the power cuts people have been using their mobile phones to provide light - no real surprise there. What was surprising is that is seems that thieves are using the light from the mobile phone to identify potential targets in the dark - they are holding them up at gunpoint and stealing the phone, and, of course, anything else they may have on their person.
Of course, theft is only part of the story. Murder is not uncommon here. Apparently, there are usually two or three murders in Panama City per day. Many of these remain unsolved. While a lot of these are either gang or drug-related, a great number are committed in the context of would appear to be otherwise simple assaults. The likelihood of not being caught means that murder, from the point of view of the thief, is a pretty good option, since there is then nobody who could possibly identify the thief.
Unfortunately, yet another example of the dehumanising power of poverty.
No comments:
Post a Comment