Hunger has reached unprecedented levels in Haiti amid a deepening security crisis. Nearly five million people - almost half of the country's population - are now facing acute food insecurity, including more than 1.6 million people at the emergency level, according to an Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) analysis released Friday. Meanwhile, gangs have extended their control and influence to more than 90 percent of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
“Haitians are on the edge - every other person is now hungry. Rising hunger is fueling the security crisis that is shattering the country. We need urgent action now - waiting to respond at scale is not an option,” said Jean-Martin Bauer, WFP’s Country Director in Haiti, on Friday.
As violence, skyrocketing inflation and poor harvests collide, Haiti is facing the worst food insecurity in its history. Recent attacks and violence by armed groups have plunged Haiti into a dramatic security crisis, with civilians under fire far beyond the capital, Port-au-Prince, where armed groups control or influence more than 90 percent of the city, according to humanitarian sources.
Some 4.97 million people - 50 percent of the assessed population - face high levels of acute food insecurity for the period March to June 2024, including some 1.64 million people classified as IPC Phase 4 (Emergency).
The latest IPC report shows a sharp deterioration in food security in Haiti, with an additional 532,000 people facing acute food insecurity compared to previous estimates for this season.
According to the IPC, the main reasons for this deterioration are increased gang violence, rising prices, low agricultural production due to below-normal rainfall, and the lack of previously planned humanitarian assistance.
The worst affected areas are in the Artibonite Valley - the country's breadbasket - where armed groups have taken over farmland and stolen harvested crops.
According to the report, despite major efforts by aid agencies, only 5 percent of the population benefited from humanitarian food assistance between August and December 2023.
Meanwhile, Haitians continue to flee Port-au-Prince, in spite of the dangers of using gang-controlled routes.
Since March 8, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reports that more than 33,000 people have left the capital, with the majority heading to the southern departments of Grande'Anse, Sud, Nippes and Sud-Est. The southern departments already host more than 116,000 people who have fled the Port-au-Prince metropolitan area in recent months.
IOM estimates that there are at least 362,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the country, including 180,000 children and more than 150,000 women.
UN agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have continued to distribute aid to the civilian population despite the dangerous security conditions, as an estimated 5.5 million Haitians, nearly half the population, including 3 million children, are in need of humanitarian assistance and protection.
The World Food Programme (WFP), the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) are providing hot meals, blankets, solar lamps and thousands of liters of drinking water to displaced people.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) have been distributing water purification tablets, chlorine, gloves and other items at sites for displaced people. They are also providing medicines and supplies to the few health centers that are still operating.
And the United Nations Population Fund and its partners are assisting women and girls with sexual and reproductive health as well as sexual and gender-based violence. Gangs continue to rape women as a means of control and revenge.
“Our humanitarian colleagues continue to do all they can to support Haitians but time is running out – they urgently need unhindered and safe access and additional funding,“ UN spokesman Stéphane Dujarric said in a press conference Friday.
While WFP operations continue in Haiti, violence and unrest have constrained the delivery of food and other humanitarian assistance. Through local partner organizations, the UN agency assists people who have been recently displaced by violence in Port-au-Prince.
„Yesterday again, roadblocks and insecurity prevented the World Food Programme and local partners to distribute the planned number of hot meals. They only reached 9,300 displaced people out of the more than 17,000 that were planned for that day,“ Dujarric added.
In the first two weeks of March, more than 100,000 hot meals were served to over 23,000 people in 16 different locations, providing essential support to families forced to flee their homes.
WFP continues to provide school meals to children in the provinces through its decentralized supply chain and local food purchases from Haitian family farmers. So far in March, 250,000 children have been fed in schools in Cap Haitien, Gonaïves, Jeremie and Miragoane.
“WFP delivers essential support to Haitians despite the very real difficulties on the ground. We work with local NGOs and farming organizations prioritizing local purchases. This means we are able to shorten our supply chain and are less vulnerable to conflict and roadblocks, while simultaneously boosting the local economy,” said WFP’s Bauer.
For its part, IOM and its local partners on Friday delivered more than 60,000 liters of safe drinking water to five displacement sites in the capital.
However, the humanitarian response in Haiti is woefully underfunded. The US$674 million Humanitarian Response Plan is currently 6.5 percent funded, with US$43.5 million received.
WFP needs US$95 million for the next six months. Donor support is urgently needed to enable the UN agency to maintain its programs and continue to serve the most vulnerable Haitians caught up in this crisis. WFP's hot meals program could run out of funds within days.
"There is a very, very great fatigue. There is human suffering of an alarming scale. A lot of fear. Trauma. People are just simply tired," Ulrika Richardson, the UN resident and humanitarian coordinator for Haiti, told reporters Thursday in a video call from the Haitian capital.
The Caribbean nation has been gripped by violence since rival gangs unleashed a wave of attacks this month. Amid gunfire and a shortage of resources, humanitarians are reaching as many of the millions of Haitians in need as they can with food, water and other life-saving aid, but more access and money are badly needed.
"Unfortunately, if there's no money arriving to our humanitarian response plan, then we will simply need to reduce the level of assistance," Richardson said. "At this stage, it would be a catastrophe."
She said that in the first two months of this year, 2,500 people were killed, kidnapped or injured in the violence.
Killings, kidnappings and sexual violence by criminal groups in and around Port-au-Prince had already increased sharply in 2023. According to the UN, at least 4,789 people were killed and 2,490 kidnapped in gang-related violence in Haiti last year.
Haiti has been in turmoil since the July 7, 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moise at his home in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Petion-Ville. Armed gangs now control much of the capital and have spread to rural areas of the country. They have carried out massacres, kidnappings, human trafficking, and sexual violence.
The situation has continued to deteriorate rapidly this month, with gangs attempting to seize the country's largest airport and helping thousands of prisoners escape from jail.
Flights are grounded at the main airport, and few international flights leave from Cap-Haitien in the north. The humanitarian coordinator said the seaport is under attack, but the Haitian National Police are in control of part of it.
"That's extremely good, because it means fuel is able to come out and basically be put to use in the capital," she said.
In recent days, UNICEF had reported that one of its containers had been looted at Port-au-Prince's main seaport. It contained essential maternal, newborn and child survival supplies, including resuscitators and water kits.
"That was extremely disastrous for our response," Richardson said.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Thursday that it was holding some supplies at the port of Port-au-Prince, but that they were at risk of being looted.
UN agencies and nongovernmental organizations have more than 300 containers in Port-au-Prince and are in talks with authorities to secure them. OCHA said it also needs air and sea transport to expand humanitarian operations.
While Haiti is in the grip of widespread gang violence, the nation's institutions are on the verge of collapse.
Beginning in late February 2024, violence escalated in many neighborhoods of the capital, as gangs launched coordinated attacks aimed at overthrowing the government of Prime Minister Ariel Henry. Armed gangs intensified attacks on critical infrastructure, including prisons, police stations, the international airport, and the seaport in Port-au-Prince.
On March 11, unelected Prime Minister Henry announced his resignation. Following his resignation, a transitional council will assume power. The proposal for a transitional council to govern violence-plagued Haiti emerged during a meeting of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM).
According to media reports, Haiti's political factions are close to reaching an agreement on a transitional council that would assume executive powers. But it remains unclear if and when the council will take power or when the Multinational Security Support (MSS) mission will begin operating in the Caribbean country.
The council will select an interim prime minister and prepare for the next presidential election. It will also appoint an inclusive council of ministers. The interim government will serve until new elections are held.
The United Nations says Haiti needs a combination of a strengthened national police force, the rapid deployment of a multinational support force and credible elections to put the country back on the path to security and stability.
On Thursday, the UN Security Council issued a press statement reiterating its members' support for a "Haitian-led, Haitian-owned political process" and stressing the need for the international community to redouble its efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to the population and support for the Haitian National Police.
The members of the Security Council strongly condemned the violence and attacks by armed gangs, while also expressing grave concern about the illicit flow of arms and ammunition into Haiti, which they said remained a fundamental factor of instability and violence.
In October 2023, the Security Council authorized the deployment of the non-UN Multinational Security Support mission to Haiti. The mission's goal is to help the Haitian police curb rising gang violence and restore security in the Caribbean nation. It is unclear when the force will be deployed.
Further information
Full text: Haiti: IPC Acute Food Insecurity Snapshot, March - June 2024, Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), report, published March 22, 2024
https://www.ipcinfo.org/fileadmin/user_upload/ipcinfo/docs/IPC_Haiti_Acute_Food_Insecurity_Projection_Update_Mar_Jun2024_Snapshot_English.pdf
Full text: New IPC data confirms record levels of hunger in Haiti, WFP, press release, published March 22, 2024
https://www.wfp.org/news/new-ipc-data-confirms-record-levels-hunger-haiti
Full text: Security Council Press Statement on Haiti, UN Security Council, press statement, issued March 21, 2024
https://press.un.org/en/2024/sc15636.doc.htm