One in every two Haitians facing food crisis
Two UN agencies on Monday warned of rising food emergencies including starvation in Haiti, Burkina Faso and Mali due to restricted movements of people and goods, and in Sudan due to the outbreak of war.
The four countries join Afghanistan, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen at the highest alert levels, with communities that are already facing or projected to face starvation or otherwise risk a slide “towards catastrophic conditions”.
The report by the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) calls for urgent attention to save both lives and jobs. Beyond the nine countries rating the highest level of concern, the agencies said 22 countries are identified as “hotspots’’ risking acute food insecurity.
The report said that the worsening socio-political and economic situation in Haiti remains the key driver of acute food insecurity.
“Generalised violence and insecurity stemming from the armed groups is specifically affecting Port-au-Prince. Sexual violence against women on large scale is rampant, contributing to the displacement of over 155,000 people in the metropolitan area. The armed groups control the strategic infrastructure of the city, disrupting food and agricultural distribution chains, market supply and humanitarian access,” it said.
“Almost one million more people have fallen into high levels of acute food insecurity since 2020, reaching the unprecedented level of nearly five million people – one in two Haitians – projected to be in crisis or worse between March and June 2023,” the report stated.
Qu Dongyu, FAO director general, called for immediate action in the agricultural sector “to pull people back from the brink of hunger, help them rebuild their lives and provide long-term solution to address the root causes of food insecurities”.
“Business-as-usual pathways are no longer an option in today’s risk landscape if we want to achieve global food security for all, ensuring that no one is left behind,” he said.