More than 5 million Haitians, almost half the country’s population, urgently require humanitarian aid, according to the UN humanitarian coordinator in that country, Ulrika Richardson.
The official said, in a press conference reported by EFE, that in the last five years the number of people affected by poverty has increased “dramatically”, in a context of prevailing insecurity in which armed gangs partially control the capital, Port-au-Prince, and other areas.
The civilian population is threatened by the violence of gangs that commit murders, kidnappings and rapes, which has also caused the displacement of a part of the population.
Almost half of the population faces a high degree of food insecurity, an indicator that has quadrupled since 2017.
Another revealing statistic is that a quarter of the population does not have access to safe drinking water.
The UN seeks 720 million dollars from donors to finance its assistance plans for the population this year in Haiti.
For its part, the Haitian government presented this Thursday a program of some 138 million dollars with the support of the IMF (99.5 million), to invest in the next six months, which seeks the “appeasement” and “social reintegration” of vulnerable groups.
“The money should go to the people who need it most. (…) There must be transparency. (…) There must be clear reports”, declared the Haitian Prime Minister, Ariel Henry.
Through the program it is planned to make community restaurants, specific subsidies for drivers, support for workers in industrial parks, as well as 5,000 families that will receive subsidies.
EFE/OnCuba
