4.97 million Haitians suffer from hunger and need some form of food assistance, 1.64 million Haitians face emergency levels of acute food insecurity according to recent figures from the United Nations. Children are particularly affected, with an alarming 19% increase in the number of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition in 2024.

The main drivers of current food insecurity are increased gang violence, rising prices, low agricultural production, as well as political unrest, civil unrest, crushing poverty and natural disasters...

An estimated 362,000 people are now internally displaced and struggling to feed themselves. Some 17,000 people have fled Port-au-Prince for safer parts of the country, leaving their livelihoods behind and further reducing their ability to buy food as prices continue to rise.

The gangs have disrupted food supplies, sometimes blocking the economy through their threats to the population and the erection of numerous roadblocks, known locally as peyi lok and seen as a deliberate and effective ploy to stifle all economic activity.

They have also blocked key transport routes and levied exorbitant tolls on vehicles that want to travel between the capital and productive agricultural areas.

In one case, a gang leader in Artibonite, the country's main rice-growing region, a relatively new hotbed of gang activity, made multiple threats on social media, warning that anyone returning to his agricultural fields would be killed.

Meanwhile, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) indicates that in 2023, agricultural production fell by around 39% for corn, 34% for rice and 22% for sorghum compared to the five-year average.

HL/ HaitiLibre