Haiti: WFP concerned over humanitarian situation as hurricane season begins

 

Ralph Tedy Erol Displaced families seek refuge in Saint-Marc, Haiti.

 Humanitarian Aid

 As the hurricane season gets underway in the Caribbean, the UN World Food Programme (WFP) is sounding the alarm over Haiti’s humanitarian situation. 

 With roughly half the population, 5.7 million people, facing some sort of emergency level of hunger, Haiti is one of five countries in the world with catastrophic levels of hunger.  

 Lola Castro, WFP's Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, recently returned from Haiti and stated at a briefing on Tuesday that "despite all the violence, displacement, and collapse," the organization is still present in the country. More than one million people in Haiti are displaced due to ongoing gang violence and insecurity.

 As the hostilities are disrupting the food systems and supply chains in the capital Port-au-Prince, WFP is facing a “quite dramatic” situation, Ms.  Castro said. 

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 Displaced population 

 She stated that a "very problematic" situation exists for displaced populations, particularly in and around Port-au-Prince, as approximately 14,000 people from the commune of Kenscoff have recently been displaced by hostilities. “Kenscoff is a commune where people used to come and sell their food,” she said, and the same people are now relying on food assistance after their houses were burned and their livelihoods “destroyed.” 

 Gender-based violence  

 With 6,000 cases of gender-based violence having been reported this year, the situation of women and girls in Port-au-Prince is dramatic, according to Ms.  Castro.  

 For girls and women, the city is probably "one of the most dangerous places in the world." “We need to provide them support to assure that they become less vulnerable and are not exposed to all this violence,” she said.  

 Dwindling aid stocks  

 The 2025 Humanitarian Response Plan for Haiti calls for just over $908 million but is only eight per cent funded.  Ms.  Castro stated that the World Food Program (WFP) alone requires $46.4 million over the next six months in order to maintain its emergency response and address the underlying causes of hunger and malnutrition. The hurricane season began on 1 June and runs through the end of November.  She warned that at this moment when half of all Haitians are already going hungry, a single storm could push millions into a humanitarian catastrophe. 

 While in past years, WFP had humanitarian stocks ready in the country and could assist between a quarter to half a million people in the immediate aftermath of a disaster, “this year, we start the hurricane season with an empty warehouse,” she said.  

 Unless resources are made available, the agency will have no capacity to respond—there are no contingency supplies, no logistical buffer, and no lifeline for the most vulnerable. 

 “We cannot forget the people of Haiti,” Ms.  Castro said, calling on the humanitarian community to provide urgent support.