New report finds hunger rising in Haiti as government pledges a quick response

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SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — Haiti’s government pledged Friday a quick response to growing hunger in the troubled Caribbean country as a new report warned that more than half the population is experiencing crisis levels of hunger or worse.

At least 5.7 million Haitians are at the crisis level, with 1.9 million of those facing emergency levels of hunger, according to the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, the leading international authority on hunger crises.

Last year, some 5.41 million Haitians were at the crisis level, with numbers expected to only increase next year, the report warned.

“The growing influence of armed groups, combined with structural problems and unfavorable climatic conditions, continues to affect the food security of the Haitian population,” it stated.

Louis Gérald Gilles, a member of Haiti’s transitional presidential council, announced Friday that the government has launched a plan to mobilize resources quickly to those most in need. Officials also created a Food and Nutrition Security Office to ensure effective coordination and an appropriate response to growing hunger, he said.

Hunger continues to surge as growing gang violence has displaced a record 1.3 million people in recent years and deepened poverty, with some 6 million Haitians living on less than $2.41 a day. Meanwhile, the cost of food increased by 33% in July compared with the same month last year.

Gangs control an estimated 90% of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, and they also have plundered communities in and around Haiti’s central agricultural region in recent months.

“Farmers who have managed to carry out their agricultural activities are forced not only to negotiate access to plots of land but also to share their produce,” the report stated. “Households that relied on small businesses have been forced to abandon their sources of income, and many people have lost their jobs due to the closure of certain businesses located in areas occupied by armed groups.”

And while the harvest of corn, bean, rice and tubers is estimated to be close to normal this year, few of those goods reach Port-au-Prince because gangs control the main roads going in and out of the capital.

The report also warned that ongoing mass deportations of Haitians from the U.S. and the Dominican Republic are worsening the situation, with more than 150,000 people deported from January to September.

“These returnees…lacked everything and put increasing pressure on already scarce resources,” the report stated.

Among the areas most affected by hunger are makeshift shelters, impoverished communities in Port-au-Prince and Haiti’s northwest and central regions.

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