The people of Honduras and Guatemala can be forgiven for thinking that the world has forgotten them. 

A month after back-to-back hurricanes slammed into the two Central American nations, more than 400,000 people remain in desperate need of emergency assistance, according to an international humanitarian agency operating in the region. 

To compound matters, the twin disasters brought about by hurricanes Eta and Iota happened in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

It means that the estimated 400,000 people currently living in shelters are doing so with little physical distancing and few hygiene protections. 

"The situation is utterly dire," Dominika Arseniuk, director of the Norwegian Refugee Council in Central America and Colombia, said in a release issued by the organization on Tuesday. 

"Entire communities have been cut off by floods and landslides. Hundreds of thousands of people are yet to receive humanitarian assistance (and) thousands are sleeping on the streets and under bridges."  

The storms killed about 200 people in the two countries. 

Hondurans get reprieve

During a fundraising trip to Washington last week, Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernandez said that failure by the international community to mount a synchronized aid response to the crisis could lead to a new exodus from his country to the United States. 

In 1998, when Hurricane Mitch devastated Honduras, thousands of its citizens fled northward. The U.S. then included the new arrivals among foreign nationals offered immigration protections under the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program. 

An announcement from the Department of Homeland Security on Monday said the TPS benefits, which were set to expire early next month, will be extended for the 44,000 Hondurans as well as another 360,000 or so immigrants from five other nations until October 2021. 

The Donald Trump administration is eager to terminate the program for nationals of selected counties hit by natural disasters or political upheaval but has been stymied by a series of lawsuits.  

This latest extension is part of an agreement between the administration and plaintiffs that allows the cases to move through the U.S. court system. 

Hernandez has welcomed the reprieve that means his compatriots have been spared from imminent deportation proceedings, but the misery continues for those left behind in Central America.  

"This region has been completely neglected by the international community," Arseniuk said. "It has one of the highest levels of people leaving and seeking asylum in the world. The number of violent crime-related deaths is higher than in many of the world's worst war zones. And it is one of the most affected by extreme weather events, as we've seen this year. What more does it take for the humanitarian community to step up?" 

According to the Norwegian agency, some 61,000 homes in Honduras were destroyed by Eta and Iota, with 95,000 people still living in shelters and 330,000 isolated because of damage to communication links and roads. 

In Guatemala, the storms destroyed 79,000 homes, while 309,000 are living in shelters.

Neighboring Nicaragua also suffered damage.