Garfield Ekon
Staff Writer
Close to 90,000 people displaced across 87 sites in the Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince, are in desperate needs, according to the United Nations (UN) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
It said more than half of those displaced are women, and a third of them are children, and as the rainy season underway in Haiti, the risk of flooding is another threat to displaced people and those in the most disadvantaged areas. Despite the challenges, the humanitarian response continues.
Yesterday, the World Food Programme (WFP) delivered more than 14,000 hot meals to displaced people in the capital area, as well as 226,000 school lunches across the country.
Meanwhile, the World Food Programme, through logistics partners and the UN Humanitarian Response Depot has facilitated air transport of humanitarian supplies into the country, through Cap-Haïtien, in northern Haiti.
The operation began last Friday, with supplies from the Pan American Health Organization/WHO in Panama, as well as the International Organization for Migration.
Chaos engulfing the country has been bubbling for more than a year, as Haiti’s ability to govern itself continues to grow, particularly after a series of natural disasters and an increasingly dire humanitarian emergency.
Ongoing conflicts and natural disasters have displaced approximately 362,000 people within the country, pushed Haiti’s health system to the brink of collapse, forced the closure of three major hospitals, while armed attacks and shortages of medicine and staff have led to scaling back or the shutdown of many health centers.
