Haiti reaches new levels of desperation: Officials told UN

• UN envoy: “An economic crisis, a gang crisis, and a political crisis have converged into a humanitarian catastrophe”.
• Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced a fuel price increase on September 11.
• Attacks on WFP (World Food Program) depots have caused the loss of some 2,000 tonnes of food aid.

Monday, officials briefed the United Nations Security Council on the “humanitarian catastrophe” in Haiti, which has reached new levels of desperation following two weeks of violence and attacks on food supply depots.

Since Prime Minister Ariel Henry announced a fuel price increase on September 11, protests and theft have rocked the already unstable nation; he claims that subsidies are too costly for one of the world’s poorest governments.

During an emergency Council meeting, Helen La Lime, Haiti’s UN envoy, stated, “An economic crisis, a gang crisis, and a political crisis have converged into a humanitarian catastrophe.”

“Before the current bout of civil unrest, some 4.9 million Haitians were in a state of humanitarian need. In the last two weeks alone, attacks on WFP (World Food Program) have resulted in the loss of some 2,000 tonnes of food aid valued at close to $5 million, that would have collectively supported up to 200,000 of the most vulnerable Haitians over the next month, ” she said.

She added that the petrol port in Varreux has been besieged by criminal groups for more than a week.

La Lime stated that fuel scarcity impacts the entire country’s ability to function, including hospital closures.

Valerie Guarnieri, the deputy executive director of the WFP, decried the predicament in Haiti.

“Instead of the progress we were hoping for and dreaming of, today the situation in Haiti has sadly reached new levels of desperation,” she told the Council, noting that the price of a basic food basket had climbed by 52 percent in less than a year.

She stated, “We expect food security to further deteriorate this year, surpassing the record high of 4.5 million people estimated to face Crisis or worse levels of acute food insecurity, including 1.3 million people in emergency.”

She noted that the instability makes it impossible and risky to conduct the humanitarian program on the ground, especially owing to concerns about the looting of warehouses with hurricane season 2022 supplies.

The Haitian minister of foreign affairs, Jean Victor Geneus, who also attended the meeting, stated that, with the exception of a few isolated incidents, the violence was “generally under control and calm has returned to several parts of the country.”

He urged the international community to provide “vigorous support” for the Haitian police against armed gangs.

More than 11 million people reside in Haiti, which shares the hilly Caribbean island of Hispaniola with the Dominican Republic. The population of the Dominican Republic is 11 million.

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