4 million Haitians face ‘acute food insecurity’
THE UNITED Nations food agency raised alarm Tuesday saying nearly 4 million Haitians faced “acute food insecurity,” while 1 million of them are a step away from famine.
Jean-Martin Bauer told a virtual press conference that he’s “ringing the alarm bell” because the recent increase in gang violence has made a very bad situation even worse and displaced an additional 15,000 people – just over the first weekend in March in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
That brings the total number of displaced people in Haiti to over 360,000, he said, and the U.N. says half of them are children. The country has more than 11 million inhabitants.
Bauer said, there were 4 million food insecure and hungry Haitians during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and that number hasn’t gone down, but the number on the brink of famine has escalated to 1 million.
Port-au-Prince has been turned into “a bubble” where gangs control the roads, the port and airport are closed, and no one can get in or get out, Bauer said.
The World Food Program (WFP) director said the agency and its partners started a hot meal service for newly displaced people in the capital, starting with 2,000 meals a day and now up to nearly 14,000 meals a day.
But he said the WFP warehouse will run out of supplies in a few weeks unless the port is reopened to replenish the agency’s stocks.
Haiti depends on food imports for 50% of its food supply and Bauer said WFP can confirm that the cost of a food basket is rising in Port-auPrince as well as elsewhere in Haiti.
There were disturbances in January and food prices jumped 25% in the south where roadblocks came up and trucks weren’t able to get to Port-au-Prince with basic necessities, he said, and there was a scarcity of propane which is the basic fuel, including for cooking.
In recent days, because of the gang violence, food prices have jumped at least 10%, Bauer said.