Nearly 6,000 individuals are at risk of starvation, according to a report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, and 11 million people are at risk of experiencing a crisis of hunger.
According to a new assessment, nearly half of Haiti’s population of over 11 million people are suffering from crisis levels of hunger or worse as gang violence chokes life in the country’s capital, Port-au-Prince, and beyond. This means that about 6,000 people are starving.
According to the report by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, gang violence disrupts the transportation of goods and keeps people from leaving their homes to buy food, resulting in a 1.2 million increase in the number of Haitians facing crisis, emergency, and famine levels of hunger in the past year, for a total of 5.4 million.
According to UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, “this is one of the highest proportions of acutely food insecure people in any crisis around the world.”
The 5,636 people who are facing starvation, the worst level, dwell in improvised shelters across the metropolitan region, according to the report released on Monday, which stated that another 2 million Haitians endure extreme hunger.
“This is shocking,” declared Action Against Hunger’s Haiti head, Martine Villeneuve. “That level was not what we anticipated. Two million is a huge amount.”
Villeneuve expressed her surprise to The Associated Press, noting that a portion of the 2 million individuals afflicted by hunger do not even reside in areas where gang violence is a problem.
Although gang violence is directly linked to a large portion of hunger, double-digit inflation has also reduced the amount of food that many Haitians can afford to purchase; currently, food accounts for 70% of all family expenses.
A food basket now costs almost 11% more than it did a year ago, with inflation reaching 30% in July.
The majority of hunger, however, is caused by gang warfare, as gangs control 80% of Port-au-Prince and the routes leading to and from northern and southern Haiti, making it impossible for farmers to carry food or for charitable organizations to distribute help.
Escalating Humanitarian Catastrophe
At least 1,379 deaths or injuries were reported between April and June, while 428 more were reported as kidnappings. Furthermore, over 700,000 people have been rendered homeless in recent years due to gang violence.
Some towns have been freed by a UN-backed operation headed by Kenya that started in late June and is intended to stop gang violence in Haiti.
In order to obtain the resources and manpower that the current mission needs, the US, Haiti, and other countries are calling for a UN peacekeeping force, but authorities warn there is still more work to be done.
“Haiti continues to face a worsening humanitarian crisis, with alarming rates of armed gang violence disrupting daily life, forcing more people to flee their homes and levels of acute food insecurity to rise,” said the study.
According to Dujarric, by the end of the year, Haitian nonprofits and humanitarian food agencies will require an extra $230 million.
According to the research, 70% of individuals residing in temporary shelters are facing acute hunger or worse.
