Thousands lose livelihood in coca eradication campaign

Edma Duran uses a machete to salvage leaves from the family's coca plot, which government workers have just destroyed in a record-breaking, US-backed eradication campaign that has affected roughly 500,000 Peruvians.

"This is what we live off," said Duran, who lives with her husband and six children in a village of 110 people that lacks electricity, phones and running water, and is five hours from the nearest doctor.

Duran is among thousands of Peruvians who have lost their livelihoods to the government's campaign to destroy the plant used to make cocaine. They say officials have offered only paltry compensation, or none at all.