PORT AU PRINCE, Haiti, CMC – The World Food Programme (WFP) Tuesday said it had been able to charter a boat from Port-au-Prince to Gonaïves, a commune in northern Haiti, bringing medical and other supplies to the estimated population of almost 300,000.
The spokesperson for the United Nations Secretary-General, Stéphane Dujarric, told reporters that the WFP, along with its partners, had been able to charter the boat to continue to provide emergency assistance to people impacted by the political and socio-economic crisis in the French-speaking Caribbean Community (CARICOM) country.
“The shipment contained medicines and medical supplies for more than 100 health partners in the northern region and food to replenish dozens of distribution centers in the north-west department, including in schools and hospitals,” Dujarric said.
He said on Monday, the WFP supplied more than 30,000 hot meals to displaced people in the capital, the most significant number of meals ever delivered by the WFP in one day since the start of this current crisis.
WFP also provided 79,000 school meals to students in the Gonaïves area and cash transfers to about 1,200 people in Jérémie, south of Haiti. The ongoing violence in Port-au-Prince is also impacting people outside the capital, as air transportation and maritime services, vital to transport goods across Haiti, are heavily impacted,” the spokesman said.
He said the continuing insecurity in Port-au-Prince also pushes people to leave the capital and find refuge in neighboring areas.
The International Organization for Migration (IMO) says that between March 8 – 27, more than 53,000 men, women and children left Port-au-Prince.
“The majority of them are heading towards the Grand Sud departments. Our humanitarian colleagues emphasized that these departments do not have the sufficient infrastructure and host communities do not have sufficient resources to cope with the large number of people fleeing Port-au-Prince,” Dujarric told reporters.
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