UN agencies warn 'catastrophic' hunger recorded in Haiti for first time
Oct 15, 2022 7:54 am
UNITED NATIONS, CMC – Two United Nations (UN) agencies have warned of “catastrophic” hunger being recorded in Haiti for the first time. The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) said that “an unrelenting series of crises has trapped vulnerable Haitians in a cycle of growing desperation, without access to food, fuel, markets, jobs and public services.” The agencies said that hunger has reached a “catastrophic level” – the highest level 5, on the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification index, or IPC – in the capital’s Cité Soleil neighbourhood.
According to the latest IPC analysis, a record 4.7 million people are currently facing acute hunger (IPC 3 and above), including 1.8 million people in Emergency phase (IPC 4) and, for the first time ever in Haiti, 19,000 people are in Catastrophe phase, phase 5. FAO and WFP said that, currently, 65 per cent of Cité Soleil’s population, especially the poorest and most vulnerable, are in high levels of food insecurity, with five percent of them in urgent need of humanitarian assistance.
“Increased violence, with armed groups vying for control of the vast and now lawless area of Port-au-Prince, has meant that residents have lost access to their work, markets and health and nutrition services…“Many have been forced to flee or just hide indoors,” the agencies said.
FAO and WFP said food security has also continued to deteriorate in rural areas in Haiti, with several going from Crisis to Emergency levels.
More:
https://www.jamaicaobserver.com/latest-news/un-agencies-warn-catastrophic-hunger-recorded-in-haiti-for-first-time/
~ ~ ~
You may recall that a few years ago, hunger was so acute women had to resort to gathering dirt from the ground, adding sugar and oil, and cooking them as "cookies" to give their children simply to fill their stomachs to temporarily ease their hunger pains. Unbearably sad, and even worse, considering how close they are to the United States.
= new reply since forum marked as read
This article was published more than 1 year ago
The long legacy of the U.S. occupation of Haiti
In 1915, the U.S. military invaded Haiti. Over the next 19 years, it executed dissidents and instigated a system of forced labor.
By David Suggs
August 6, 2021 at 7:29 a.m. EDT
People gather to watch a soccer game at Square of Canapé Vert in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (Joshua Lott/The Washington Post)
U.S. soldiers were dispatched to Haiti’s shores in 1915, ostensibly to stabilize a country in disarray after a presidential assassination. But over the next 19 years, U.S. forces executed political dissidents and implemented a system of forced labor that ravaged Haiti’s peasant population. Thousands of people died.
The United States’ two-decade occupation shaped Haiti in important, and often damaging, ways. Haitian leaders continued to use the systems developed by the United States to exploit rural farmers and silence dissidents. And significant parcels of Haitian land were sold to U.S. companies. As Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat wrote on the 100-year anniversary of the invasion: “Our désocupation has yet to come.” And as Haiti grapples once again with instability and violence after the assassination of President Jovenel Moïse, this legacy is an important reminder of the challenges of foreign intervention.
The conditions for the U.S. occupation of Haiti were decades in the making, according to Mark Schuller, an anthropology professor at Northern Illinois University. Though Haitians declared their independence in 1804, the U.S. didn’t recognize Haiti as a country until 1862, enforcing a trade embargo.
Racism played a significant role in that decision. As historian Brandon R. Byrd wrote, “Haiti confronted backlash from U.S. politicians who feared that it would undermine their own systems of slavery and white supremacy.” Prominent lawmakers argued that forming diplomatic relations with Haiti would be seen as “a reward for the murder of masters and mistresses by black slaves,” as one senator put it.
U.S. leaders also saw Haiti as an important military asset. In 1868, President Andrew Johnson considered annexing the island of Hispaniola, consisting of Haiti and the Dominican Republic, for strategic purposes. U.S. lawmakers worried that an unstable Haiti could be vulnerable to foreign intervention.
More:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2021/08/06/haiti-us-occupation-1915/
Free access to the article at this link:
https://archive.ph/
Enter the article's URL in the space at the top of the page under:
"My url is alive and I want to archive its content"
Published
1 day ago
Across Haiti, almost five million are struggling with malnutrition
By Merlyn Thomas
BBC News
The United Nations is warning that hunger in one of Haiti's biggest slums is at catastrophic levels, as gang violence and economic crises push the country to "breaking point".
Nearly 20,000 people in the capital's impoverished Cité Soleil area have dangerously little access to food and could face starvation, the UN says,
Across Haiti, almost five million are struggling with malnutrition.
"Haiti is facing a humanitarian catastrophe," a top UN official said.
"The severity and the extent of food insecurity in Haiti is getting worse," Jean-Martin Bauer, the Haiti country director for the UN's World Food Programme added.
The poorest nation in the Americas is suffering acute political, economic, health and security crises which have fuelled a rise in violence and paralysed the country.
More:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-63261742