Speaking from the United Nations agency regional public information officer Alejandro Lopez announced to press that the World Food Program lacks crucially needed funds to assist and feed Haiti’s poor and that international donors must provide urgent and massive aid.    He continued to say “the situation is particularly serious because fifty six percent of the Haitian population is already living with less than one dollar a day. We do not have enough food to face the demand and we will need even more funds than what already has been requested.”

Recent food riots in Haiti have already claimed the lives of six people over the last few days.  Mr Lopez also said that the World Food Program had a $37.8 million shortfall in the $45 million budget anticipated for this year in the Caribbean nation.  The program initially aimed to feed 1.7 million Haitians but predictions now show that the actual number is close to 5 million people. Mr Lopez continued “We expect donors to be as generous as they have been in the past,”  and said that children, pregnant women and mothers who are nursing their young would be given priority during food distributions. 

Meanwhile the Haitian government and other partners are working on a new budget and will be presenting new sets of figures to potential donors in the up coming days. Last weekend Haiti’s Prime Minister, Jacques Edouard Alexis was sacked in a no confidence vote after more than a week of violent demonstrations due to sky rocketing food and fuel prices. 

This Saturday saw hundreds of Haitians standing in long lines waiting for United Nation and regional food aid donations, some people had walked for hours during the week to queue and wait.  Haitian officials handed out 1,000 bags of United Nation food in a town called Cite Soleil on the eastern edge of the capital.  Aid here was limited to women over the age of 57 and handicapped people. Unfortunately at least 50 people were turned away, one person in particular, a lady of age 60 who had been waiting for food to feed 12 children in her extended family.

Even in poor areas there are market stalls piled high with papayas and small bags of pasta but for most of the population it is impossible to buy this food due to global food prices rising over 40 percent in the last year.

Jacques Diouf the United Nations Food and Agriculture director general said in Geneva yesterday “Food riots in developing countries will spread unless world leaders take major steps to reduce prices for the poor.  World cereal production will rise, but record prices are unlikely to fall, which will force poorer countries’ food import bills up to 56 percent and hungry people out on to the streets.”

In Haiti the people are hungry and are already out on the streets waiting for food.