As UN appeals for aid for Haiti, Pentagon sends in another military flight with supplies

Short on funding and with barely enough hot meals to last for the next six weeks, the World Food Program is appealing for humanitarian assistance for Haiti.

The organization’s deputy executive director, fresh off a visit to the Caribbean nation over the weekend, said with more than 1 million Haitians facing famine, the United Nations food aid agency would like to do more but is struggling to meet the demand. The number of Haitians forced to flee their home from armed gangs is on the rise, and nearly 5 million Haitians — almost half of the population — are now struggling to feed themselves.

“The situation is dramatic, a devastating crisis, massive humanitarian impact,” Carl Skau said Thursday from New York as he addressed journalists at the U.N. daily news briefing.

It’s the worst humanitarian crisis the country has faced, he said, since the deadly 2010 earthquake left more than 1.5 million internally displaced in camps, another 1. 5 million injured and more than 300,000 dead.

Adding to fears: the main terminal at Varreux, where fuel reserves are stored, has been closed since Monday after armed groups attacked the area and blocked the road leading into the port. The situation could lead to even more severe restrictions in the fuel supply, the U.N said.

The U.N. is seeking $674 million in humanitarian assistance for Haiti. The agency has only received about 8% of that as of this week, the head of the U.N. political mission in Port-au-Prince, María Isabel Salvador, told the Security Council when it met to discuss the situation in Haiti.

While the center of the alarming crisis is in the capital of Port-au-Prince — where coordinated attacks that started on Feb. 29 have left a trail of destruction as gangs loot and burn police stations, universities, hospitals and businesses — the fallout is being felt throughout. Nearly two months after the violent uprising, the main international airport and seaport remain closed while the price of food is skyrocketing.

The number of displaced people continues to rise, according to the latest U.N. report, which says there are more than 90,200 people living in 85 camps and other shelters. Another estimated 100,000 have left the capital altogether to escape the violence, the agency said, overwhelming many communities.

“There is displacement, there is disruption in trade and economy, there is inflation,” Skau said. “And so the crisis is felt everywhere.”

Skau, who visited Cap-Haïtien, the city on Haiti’s north coast, said he saw many women and girls who had left Port-au-Prince with nothing, and still had nothing. His agency, he told the Haitian daily Le Nouvelliste, needs $103 million to fund its activities over the next six months. The cost of the emergency food assistance alone, he said, is $60.8 million.

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