FOUR million people in Haiti face acute food insecurity and one million are one step away from famine, the UN food agency’s director said on Tuesday.
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 in the nation even worse.
Over the first weekend in March, an additional 15,000 people were displaced in the capital, Port-au-Prince.
That brings the total number of displaced people in Haiti to over 360,000, he said, half of whom are children. The country has just over 11 million inhabitants.
There were four million food insecure and hungry Haitians during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, Mr Bauer said, and that number has not gone down; but the number on the brink of famine has escalated to one million.
Port-au-Prince has been turned into “a bubble” where gangs control the roads, with the port and airport closed, and no-one able to get in or get out, Mr Bauer said.
The World Food Programme (WFP) director said the agency and its partners’ hot meal service for newly displaced people in the capital, beginning with 2,000 meals a day, has now grown to nearly 14,000.
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 per cent of its food supply, and Mr Bauer said WFP can confirm that the cost of a food basket is rising in Port-au-Prince, as elsewhere in Haiti.
There were disturbances in January and food prices jumped 25 per cent 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 per cent, Mr Bauer said.
The economy in rural areas outside the capital depends on links to Port-au-Prince, and food prices have also risen elsewhere in the country because of disrupted trade.
A WFP survey found that as prices go up, household incomes are going down because people can’t go to work, are “sheltering in place,” and aren’t earning money, Mr Bauer said.
Asked about the impact of Prime Minister Ariel Henry’s resignation, which will take effect once a transitional presidential council is created, Mr Bauer said he isn’t good at reading political dynamics “but certainly [hoped] there will be an improvement in security.”
Insecurity is hampering people from taking their children to school and going to the supermarket and work, which are “extremely risky,” he said.
Speaking from Cap Haitien in northern Haiti, Mr Bauer stressed, however, that the focus can’t just be on security,
“We also need a robust humanitarian response,” he said.
But the UN’s $674 million (£505m) humanitarian appeal for Haiti this year is just 2.6 per cent funded.
On a positive note, Mr Bauer said thanks to supplies WFP can purchase from local farmers, it was able to feed about 160,000 school children on Monday in north and south Haiti and other calm areas, part of an ongoing programme.
He said despite difficulties of access because of the violence, WFP has been able to deliver money to some of Haiti’s poorest on their mobile phones.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said on Tuesday that many health facilities have been forced to shut down because of the gang violence.
Blood shortages persist at the National Blood Transfusion Center and efforts are underway to bring in blood from the neighboring Dominican Republic, he said.
