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STORY: WFP / HAITI HUNGER GANG VIOLENCE
TRT: 08:34
SOURCE: WFP
RESTRICTIONS: PLEASE CREDIT WFP ON SCREEN
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / CREOLE / NATS
DATELINE: PLEASE SEE SHOTLIST FOR DETAILS
03 JUNE 2023, PORT AU PRINCE, HAITI
1. Aerial shots, gang-controlled neighborhoods in Port au Prince
21 NOVEMBER 2021, PORT AU PRINCE, HAITI
2. GVs police and gangs fight each other for control of Port au Prince while its citizens are trapped in the violence
29 MAY 2023, CITE SOLEIL, HAITI
3. Vairous shots, Smelting scrap metal to be melted down to produce cooking pots
4. Various shots, Exclandia Belizaire shows the bullets holes in her front door; A single mother of 5, she made pots for a living but had to stop due to the fighting in Cite Soleil. She was supported by her stepfather until he was shot on her doorstep during gang violence.
5. SOUNDBITE (Creole) Exclandia Belizaire, Cite Soleil resident:
“Look at all the bullet holes at my door and my ceiling. Now when it rains, the water enters, and I have to sleep under a table.”
6. SOUNDBITE (Creole) Exclandia Belizaire, Cite Soleil resident:
“I ask for help so my daughters can go to the school. I don’t want them to be at the streets exposed to the criminals. They are girls.”
29 MAY 2023 HOPITAL UNIVERSITAIRE DE LA PAIX, PORT AU PRINCE
7. Various shots, local nutrition testing Hospital
30 MAY 2023, ARTIBONITE, HAITI
8. Aerial shots, farmers weeds in field
9. Various shots, farmers
10. Various shots, Adania Piece, a merchant who brought produce from farmers to sell in the market. She was kidnapped on her way to the market. Her family had to borrow money from the bank to pay her ransom. Now she is in debt and afraid to go back to work. The fear of kidnapping like Adania’s in the agricultural breadbasket of Haiti are leading to crops being left to rot unharvested which further disrupts the food supply and increases the threat of hunger.
11. SOUNBITE (Creole) Adania Piece, local resident:
“They told us they were going to kill us. They didn’t give us food or water for days, and they blindfolded us. It was so tight that it hurt our eyes. They gave us water eventually. But it was dirty water and we got sick.”// “I’m a single mother, my husband is gone, my parents are in a difficult situation, we live together. The money that I borrowed is now worrying me a lot. People who lend me money ask me now to pay them back. They took a loan at the bank for me. Now I stay at home. I don’t know what to do”
12. SOUNBITE (Creole) Fils-Aime Lubin, Farmer:
“It’s terrible, before we could go to the market, sell our produce, and buy what we need. Now, we’re obliged to stay at home and hunger will kill us”
30 May 2023, Gonaives, HAITI
13. Various shots, market in Gonaives
2 JUNE 2023, PORT AU PRINCE, HAITI
14. SOUNDBITE (English) Jean-Martin Bauer, Haiti Country Director, World Food Programme (WFP):
“I would say that people have been starved in Port au Prince. It’s definitely been the case here that armed groups have been isolating parts of Port au Prince, they’ve been using siege tactics and that’s entirely unacceptable. In rural areas what’s going on is that these gangs are fighting for farmland and they are fighting for their food sources and the violence in Haiti is also about the control over resources over valuable resources and one of these happens to be food and we’ve seen farmland being fought over..we’ve seen trucks with food being pillaged, we’ve seen humanitarian warehouses being looted and therefore food is an essential component to this conflict.t”
30 MAY 2023, GONAIVES, HAITI
15. Vairous shots, WFP helps local farmers by buying food locally for WFP School Meals in the classroom
2 JUNE 2023, PORT AU PRINCE, HAITI
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Jean-Martin Bauer, Haiti Country Director, World Food Programme (WFP):
“The WFP response in Haiti is grossly underfunded. We need 122 million dollars over the next 6 months just to keep going. And definitely there has been more attention on other crises but I find this quite hard to understand. Here in Haiti there have been more civilian deaths than in Ukraine over the month of April but not nearly the same amount of attention.”
29 MAY 2023, CITE SOLEIL, HAITI
17. Various shots, Public schools in Cite Soleil are closed but a few schools like this one run by Hands Together provides incentive for parents to send kids to school to get WFP school meals when they otherwise may be missing a proper meal
03 June 2023, Port Au Prince, HAITI
18. Various traveling shots, torrential rains flood
15 SEPTEMBER 2022, GONAIVES, HAITI
19. Various shots, WFP’s warehouse in Gonaives was looted and burned
Hunger is tightening its grip on vulnerable Haitians as insecurity, violence and deepening economic woes are driving a complex emergency in Haiti. Almost half the population is facing acute hunger and malnutrition is on the rise.
Hunger is at record levels, with 4.9 million people facing acute food insecurity (IPC3+), including 1.8 million people in IPC4, according to the March IPC. This amounts to one-in-two Haitians – more than many other major hunger crises – including Somalia or Afghanistan.
In the poorest neighbourhoods of Port-au-Prince - the epicentre of violence in Haiti - people live under the spectre of non-state armed groups that battle for control, restrict movement and limit access to food, water and sanitation services. Residents have lost access to work, markets and health and nutrition services. Many have been killed or forced to flee for safety.
“Violence in the capital has reached level similar to countries at war” said the UN Secretary General in May. There have been more civilians killed in Haiti than in Ukraine in the first four months of 2023, while Haiti receives much less international attention and funding.
Armed group activity has been spreading outside the capital, including in Artibonite - the breadbasket of the country - where farmers have been kidnapped for ransom leading others to limit movements to market putting the nation’s food security at further risk.
Cité Soleil is one of the country’s most deprived areas and assessments there detected ‘Catastrophic’ hunger (IPC5) in 2022. Thanks to assistance provided by WFP the situation has improved but this victory remains fragile, as any disruption to humanitarian support for these people could result in a return to catastrophic conditions.
Soaring inflation and skyrocketing prices continue to compound misery for Haitians. Many are unable to afford a basic meal, with a majority forced to cut back on their daily intake.
Price rises have become a flashpoint in Haiti, with annual inflation at 48 percent. Meanwhile the Haitian Gourde lost 45 percent of its value against the US dollar between January 2022 and January 2023, driving affordable foods out of reach for many Haitians.
Haiti is among the ten countries most affected by food price inflation, according to the World Bank. Eight out of ten Haitians are currently reducing the size and/or number of meals to cope.
A continuing shortage of petroleum products has led to significant barriers to economic activity and a projected fifth consecutive year of contraction of the national economy in 2023.
WFP continues to expand operations and aims to reach 2.3 million people this year – despite immense challenges. WFP offers immediate food relief and works towards building sustainable food security for all Haitians. However, we are severely underfunded and our operations in Haiti require US$122.9 million over the next 6 months.
The situation in Haiti remains extremely concerning, with food security hinging on humanitarian assistance and the availability and price of fuel. Without additional funding WFP won’t be able to assist all of the 2.3 million planned for 2023. Due to funding constraints, WFP has been unable to reach 715,000 people in IPC4 (Emergency) this year, leaving them vulnerable to sliding into IPC 5 (Catastrophe) conditions.
While WFP remains focused on meeting immediate needs, we also contribute to long-term development, including working with the government to help build the framework for a national system of social assistance, linking smallholder farmers to local markets, and promoting community-level disaster risk reduction solutions.
In Numbers
Food insecure people (Mar-Jun 2023): 4.9 million
People WFP aims to assist in 2023: 2.3 million
People WFP assisted in 2022: 1.6 million
WFP six-month funding needs: US$122.9m
The state of child nutrition in Haiti is worsening, with recent nutrition surveys showing a slight deterioration from three years ago. The ongoing emergency is severely impacting the health and nutrition of Haitian children who have limited access to nutritious food, compromising their development which can lead to lifelong health issues.
Nationally, 7.2 percent of children under the age of 5 are acutely malnourished and in need of immediate treatment. More worrying, the survey revealed several hotspots, particularly in and around Port- au-Prince. The prevalence in the capital city stands at 8.7 percent and in the rest of the West Department at 12.4 percent, the highest in the country. This is considered of high public health significance according to international standards, prompting need for immediate response. Across the country, an average of nearly 23 percent of children are stunted as a result of chronic malnutrition, a rate which is considered high according to international standards.
So far in 2023, WFP has assisted more than 1.3 million people with over USD 24 million in cash- based transfers and more than 4,500 MT of food commodities. Over 142,000 hot meals have been distributed in IDP sites, cholera treatment centres and at border crossings. In 2022, WFP reached 1.6 million people with USD 28 million in cash-based transfers; 13,200 metric tons of food and 320,500 hot meals distributed in internally displaced persons’ centres and cholera treatment centres.
WFP’s School Meals Programme serves daily meals to 400,000 children, with many receiving school meals prepared entirely with products grown and purchased locally. Currently, WFP programmes in the departments of Nippes and South run with 100 percent of local purchases.
In 2023, WFP planned to raise the number of children receiving school meals prepared with local ingredients to 183,000, a goal which will be achieved within the first six months of the year. By 2030, we aim to have our school meals programme using 100 percent locally cultivated and processed products.
