After more than two months of blockages due to numerous violent armed clashes, the World Food Program (WFP) has made significant progress in access in recent weeks, delivering truckloads of food to the very vulnerable and insecure neighborhood of Cité Soleil, while resuming the use of the Port-au-Prince international airport for humanitarian passenger and cargo flights.

"Despite an exceptionally complex security situation, WFP is taking important steps to restore humanitarian supply chains while providing desperately needed assistance, even in the most difficult neighborhoods of Port-au-Prince," said Jean-Martin Bauer, Director of WFP in Haiti.

"These improvements must be extended to the ports of Port-au-Prince, which remain hard hit by the unstable security situation. Without sustainable humanitarian access and the reopening of vital supply routes, people already facing acute food insecurity risk falling deeper into hunger."

Details of WFP activities since the start of the crisis :

A WFP-chartered cargo plane landed on May 30, carrying 15 tons of medical supplies for partner organizations. This was the first United Nations humanitarian cargo flight to land in Port-au-Prince since the start of the current crisis.

Over a two-week period in May, 615 tonnes of rice, beans and vegetable oil were distributed to nearly 93,000 people in Cité Soleil, including nursing mothers and children, who had been cut off from aid humanitarian due to the new wave of violence…

In addition to Cité Soleil, WFP has extended its food assistance throughout the capital since the start of the current crisis in March this year. More than a million hot meals have been distributed to more than 108,000 displaced people living in temporary shelters in 87 sites.

Since the start of the year, WFP has provided assistance to more than a million people across the country, including nearly 394,000 schoolchildren who received school meals (45% of them received prepared meals entirely with local ingredients).

WFP has also distributed more than US$8 million in cash directly to vulnerable people as part of its emergency, resilience and social protection programme.

HL/ HaitiLibre